King County health officials insist no Ebola worries here

King County’s top health official insists despite the first confirmed case of Ebola in the United States, there’s no reason to worry here.

Dr. Jeff Duchin is the Chief of Communicable Disease for Public Health – Seattle & King County. He says he’s not surprised a case has appeared in the U.S. and he wouldn’t be surprised to see someone infected with the disease arrive in our area.

But he says the risk of it spreading is virtually non-existent.

“Ebola spreads through direct contact with blood or body fluids from a sick person. It doesn’t spread through someone who is well, like influenza and measles can,” he says. “So for that reason it is not something that spreads easily through countries that have good public health systems.”

Even if someone is carrying the Ebola virus, they are not contagious until they develop symptoms, Duchin says. Those include fever, vomiting, and diarrhea.

In the case of the Texas patient who arrived in the United States, that person displayed no symptoms until four days later, meaning there was “zero risk” of spreading the disease, health officials say.

The public health department has been working closely with local hospitals and health care to ensure they are on the lookout and prepared in case someone with Ebola emerges here.

“We have been partnering with all of our providers to make sure they know the right questions to ask, symptoms to look for, to minimize any risk to other patients and workers,” Duchin says.

Most importantly is whether a person has traveled out of the country in the past 21 days, especially to one of the west African nations where the Ebola outbreak is occurring.

If a person is diagnosed with Ebola, they would be immediately quarantined, and officials would immediately trace all of their contacts and notify those people of potential exposure, and begin monitoring them as well.

“The risk of having Ebola in the community is almost zero. This disease is not going to spread in the U.S.,” Duckin says.

If a patient does test positive, CDC officials and the U.S. health system have strict protocols for keeping and treating the patient in isolation, including use of personal protective equipment such as gloves, full-body suits, goggles and masks for healthcare workers in direct contact with the infected person.

And Duchin says he’s confident all local hospitals are more than prepared and have all they need to handle a possible Ebola patient, just in case.

Information from the Associated Press is included in this report.