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Ebola spread: Hospital administrators “are like ostriches with their heads in the sand"

Risk management, training and oversight is key to preventing Ebola's spread, experts say.

By Robert Langreth, Margaret Newkirk, Bloomberg | Updated on October 13, 2014
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — Hospital staff need better training, more funding and sharper oversight to handle Ebola patients, nurses and doctors said after a caregiver in Dallas was confirmed to have caught the deadly virus.

The unidentified worker, who cared for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, was infected after a “breach in protocol,” said Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the first time someone has contracted Ebola inside U.S. borders.

Even as the CDC has hastened to reassure the public that the virus won’t spread in the U.S., the agency doesn’t monitor hospitals and has no authority to make sure they comply with official guidelines, according to Abbigail Tumpey, a CDC spokeswoman who is leading the education outreach to hospitals.

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