DALLAS: In Cleansing Ebola, Dallas Hospital Is Disinfected but Homes Are Purged
DALLAS — While expensive medical equipment used on Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Presbyterian Hospital Dallas was decontaminated with disinfectants, the 60-inch TV hanging in the apartment of his fiancee was sawed in half, stuffed in a hazmat drum and incinerated.
“That Samsung was one of the hardest cuts of our lives, but we were told to get rid of everything that could be replaced and we did,” said Brad Smith, vice president of Fort Worth-based CG Environmental - the Cleaning Guys, which decontaminated Louise Troh’s home at the apartment complex where Duncan became symptomatic with vomiting and diarrhea.
This was the first time that a residence in the United States had ever been decontaminated for the Ebola virus. There were no manuals, no specific guidelines by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on what to do. In Texas, the county and city had to come up with a plan quickly to rid the place of any remaining Ebola virus, to prevent its spread while providing peace of mind to a fearful community.
The response now appears to be decontamination overkill, compared with what the CDC and other health agencies recommend for hospital disinfection.
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