Health professionals from major U.S. cities train to combat highly infectious disease

Twelve healthcare workers from cities with airports servicing international flights are training this week at the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) to ensure they’re prepared should any passengers with symptoms of a highly infectious disease arrive in their communities.   

The specialists from Atlanta, Georgia; and Charlotte, North Carolina are taking the CDP’s four-day Barrier Precautions and Controls for Highly Infectious Disease (HID) Course, which teaches emergency medical service, healthcare, and public health professionals how to care for and treat people with a highly infectious disease, including how to reduce the potential for infection to responders, healthcare providers, and other patients.

The training is very timely.

The West African country of Equatorial Guinea declared an outbreak of the Marburg virus disease in mid-February and authorities in Tanzania, in East Africa, confirmed that country’s first-ever case of the fatal disease shortly after that.  And this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, dispatched a team to those countries to assist in stopping the spread of the disease. 

The Marburg virus is in the same family of viruses as the Ebola virus and impacts multiple organ systems. Like Ebola, symptoms include high fever, headache, and muscle aches. It’s also common to have abdominal pain and diarrhea.