Infection prevention departments monitoring isolated Ebola outbreak in Africa

PROVIDENCE – There is currently an isolated outbreak of Ebola in Central Uganda. As of October 6, there have been 44 cases reported. The Ministry of Health of Uganda is working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and CDC in response to this outbreak. As a precaution, the CDC is communicating with healthcare providers to increase awareness. The risk posed to the United States is very low.

Some states in which Providence serves have reported monitoring low risk patients for Ebola who have traveled to the countries in which the outbreaks are occurring but have no known exposures. At this time, the situation does not warrant activating an Ebola-specific travel screen in our electronic medical record platforms. Infection Prevention departments across the Providence family of organizations are aware of the situation and continue to monitor and updates will be provided as necessary.

At this time, the CDC is redirecting travelers from Uganda to five airports to allow for symptom screening. There are no direct flights from Uganda to the United States.

As a best practice, providers should continue to perform a travel assessment as part of a standard patient assessment and immediately isolate patients with signs and symptoms of communicable infectious disease. Caregivers should review applicable infection prevention policies and procedures to understand their role in preventing the spread of disease.

Information about early detection of Ebola is available here.