This week the Center for Disease Control and Preventionconfirmed the first case of Ebola in the U.S. raising questions across the country about how serious that threat really is for Americans. Despite heightened concerns, risks remain low for Nevada.
Infectious disease expert Dr. Jim Wilson says because Reno isn’t a huge city and there is limited international air travel in-and-out of the region, the risk that an infected person would actually arrive here is low. Although Las Vegas is an international hub, Wilson says that the demographics there don’t worry him either.
“Here in Nevada, for instance, we know that there is an East African cultural diaspora in Vegas, but East Africa is not involved in the outbreak at this time, so that’s not really such a concern for us,” Wilson says.
In his office at the University of Nevada, Reno, Wilson is closely monitoring what’s going on in Texas and says there is a big lesson to learn, mainly to diagnose and isolate the patient early on. In Dallas, the doctors released the infected patient back into the community because there was miscommunication and they didn’t know he had recently been to Liberia.
“I think the biggest message that I would say to our local community is really more directed to our health care providers: that you must pay close attention to your patient population and keep a high index of suspicion," Wilson says. "If you suspect someone has traveled from West Africa, you don’t necessarily discount the risk if they say ‘no’.”
Wilson says that in his experience working in West Africa, some people are fearful of their doctors and may not give accurate responses to medical questions because they don’t see hospitals as places of healing but as places to die.
Recently, Wilson has been working with health care professionals in the region to set up protocols in the event they have to treat a suspected case.
