Ebola patient ID'd; Bay Area hospitals prepare for potential cases

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- An emergency room nurse at the Texas hospital treating a man with Ebola, made a serious mistake. Thomas Eric Duncan told her he flew in from West Africa, but that information was not fully communicated throughout the hospital team. That missed opportunity could have exposed others to this deadly virus.

Duncan's condition has now been upgraded from critical to serious.

As many as 18 people had contact with him after he became infectious. Five of them are children and all of them are being monitored. Three first responders who rushed him to the hospital have tested negative for Ebola.

Duncan left Liberia already infected with the disease, but not contagious. Everyone who flies out of Liberia is thoroughly screened, but, as we now know, that is not enough.

Bay Area hospitals like Regional Medical Center of San Jose are gearing up for the possibility of an Ebola patient walking through their doors.

People with infectious diseases commonly find their way to emergency rooms. While Ebola cases are new in the U.S., training is underway and procedures are being established.

For now, hospital staff can usually identify the potential of a patient with Ebola because of its origin in West Africa. That makes travel history a priority.

Regional Medical Center of San Jose says its screening procedures are similar to how previous outbreaks have been handled.

Dr. Elaine Nelson is Director of the Emergency Department.

"They're long standing procedures. However, we do fine-tune them given whatever the outbreak is. That could be SARS from years ago, it could be H1N1 when that first came, but of course, with Ebola, that virus is very scary to the public. It's a very different type of virus we haven't seen in our country before," said Nelson.

The presence of fever is the next factor that determines how the patient is handled to protect the medical team and hospital visitors.

Dr. Alex Studemeister is the hospital's Director of Infectious Diseases.

"That patient is immediately placed in strict isolation, and what that means is a private room, droplet isolation, and contact isolation," said Studemeister.

"We would not enter those rooms without complete protection from the droplets, and in the hospital, we have several beds that are fully contained isolation units, We'd be able to protect other staff and visitors from those patients," said Nelson.

The hospital is keeping in contact with the CDC and with the county public health agency to update procedures. The real challenge is the speed with which people can fly from continent to continent before symptoms appear. Fever is usually the first symptom.

During past outbreaks, some airports have used temperature sensors to identify arriving passengers with fever. The number of international passengers passing through the Bay Area's three airports is staggering. More than 4.2 million at San Francisco International, 81,000 at Oakland and 65,000 at Mineta San Jose.