After several cases of the Ebola virus occurred in the United States, citizens looked into the emergency management responses to infectious disease control. Even if they lived hours and hundreds of miles away from those cases, they wanted to know what emergency response specialists did to track and treat that virus. Infectious diseases can spread through blood and other bodily fluids, when an infected person coughs on an uninfected person or from a contaminated water source. Emergency management specialists work together to keep people safe from those diseases.
Diagnose the Infection
Diagnosing the disease or infection is the first of several emergency management responses to infectious disease control. Tuberculosis is a highly contagious disease that often spread from skin to skin contact and from infected air. Specialists working in the area will go over the symptoms of the disease and perform tests to determine which patients have the disease. As many diseases share similar symptoms, testing is an important step that lets medical professionals ensure which disease affected the community and which treatments will work to halt its spread.
Issue Warnings and Alerts
After identifying the specific disease, the team working in the city will issue a series of alerts and warnings to others. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can issue a travel warning that alerts others of the problem. The CDC issued several alerts in 2014 to warn travelers of the areas where the Ebola Virus was most common. This kept others from exposing themselves to the virus. Alerts and warnings may also include warnings to the general public on the warning signs of infections, what to do if someone they know contracts the disease and where they can get help for themselves.
Quarantine Infected People
Quarantine is a step that many locals areas take after an infection hits that city. A Maine nurse received some harsh criticism from her community after coming into contact with the Ebola Virus and not quarantining herself from the public. Quarantining infected patients is one of the best ways to reduce the number of infected people in a population. Doctors will often set aside a series of rooms in a local hospital. They treat and work with patients in those specific areas and reduce the number of workers and other patients who come into contact with those patients.
Treat the Infection
Treating the infection is another of the emergency management responses to infectious disease control. It is the only way to ensure that they eradicate the disease and keep it from coming back. The CDC will often work with doctors to establish treatment methods and to keep others living in the surrounding areas safe. This might involve cleaning the homes where infected patients lived in the past or getting in touch with anyone they had contacted with after contracting the disease. The CDC can find those potentially infected people and help treat them, even if they aren’t aware of their risks.
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Emergency management professionals respond to incidents that can affect one or more people. Specialists working in this field follow a series of specific steps to identify signs of infectious and communicable diseases and keep that disease from progressing. The emergency management responses to infectious disease control may include alerting the general public, treating infected patients and quarantining infected patients in a safe location.