Health expert: No cause for Ebola fears in Seattle

With so much media attention focusing on a fast moving Ebola outbreak in West Africa, it’s understandable some might worry about the infection somehow spreading all the way to Seattle. But a local expert says there’s no cause for concern.

“I’m not worried I’m going to be seeing Ebola patients anytime soon in the hospital,” says Dr. Michael Bolton, a specialist with the infectious disease department at the Polyclinic in Seattle.

At least 729 people have died since cases first emerged in March: 339 in Guinea, 233 in Sierra Leone, 156 in Liberia and one in Nigeria.

Bolton – who has studied virulent diseases in Africa – says the spread of Ebola to the United States is virtually impossible, even as the State Department prepares to bring two American aid workers who contracted the deadly virus to Atlanta for treatment early next week.

“The way of contracting it is pretty much direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected patient, and that’s just not very likely,” Bolton says. “People who get sick are around their families and then the families want to prepare the bodies for funeral and then they get sick.”

Aid workers and medical professionals who come in contact with those infected have also been stricken by the virus.

The two American patients will be treated in a special isolation unit established by the Centers for Disease Control at Emory University in Atlanta. It’s the first time someone with Ebola has been brought to the United States.

“Emory University Hospital physicians, nurses, and staff are highly trained in the specific and unique protocols and procedures necessary to treat and care for this type of patient,” the hospital said in a statement. “These procedures are practiced on a regular basis throughout the year so we are fully prepared for this type of situation.”

Bolton says even if the disease was able to somehow escape the quarantine, the U.S. health care system is equipped to quickly identify and contain the spread of the virus.

“The best thing you can have is good medical treatment around the person and I don’t think that’s a risk to us at all,” he says.

The CDC has issued a travel advisory urging Americans to avoid non-essential travel to the three countries at the heart of the Ebola outbreak. While the Seattle-area is home to a number of global health organizations, including the Gates Foundation, Bolton says workers with most of those groups face virtually no risk even if they travel to those countries.

“The work that most of us are doing in Seattle internationally is not directly involved in the outbreak itself. So it’s really more anybody who is working with the CDC or going there specifically for this outbreak to help control it.”

As a specialist in the Polyclinic’s Seattle Travel Medicine Clinic, Bolton says he has had to reassure a number of patients it’s still safe to travel to other parts of Africa for business or pleasure.

“It would be like not going on your trip to France because of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. It’s quite local, it’s quite separate from anybody’s travel that’s regularly over there.”

Still, he understands all the concern, especially given the dramatic reporting and mystery surrounding Ebola. But he says we should actually pay far more attention to a more common infection.

“If I told you that there’s an infection coming to the United States in the next five months and it’s going to sweep across the country and kill 20,000 people, you’d be quite nervous. But that’s actually true and it’s called the flu,” he says. “You know a lot of people still don’t even get their flu shots.”