On Tuesday, Sept. 30, the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control reported the patient had traveled to Dallas, Texas, from West Africa and started showing symptoms of the virus five days after arriving in the U.S.
This news came one week after President Obama spoke at the United Nations conference in New York City, urging world leaders and heads of state to step up and do more to stop the spread of Ebola. The president called the epidemic taking over West Africa a threat to regional and global security.
“They need more beds, they need more supplies, they need more health workers, and they need all of this as fast as possible,” Obama said. “Right now, patients are being left to die in the streets because there’s nowhere to put them and there’s nobody to help them.”
Here in Chicago, Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach has stepped up to address the Ebola crisis and needs donations immediately. As a medical surplus recovery organization, Mission Outreach focuses on providing quality healthcare to developing nations. The organization is asking individuals and companies across Chicago for financial donations that will help transport supplies and protective gear to medical workers in Nigeria.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ebola is spread through direct contact with blood, bodily fluids or contaminated objects like needles or syringes. Therefore, the people at highest risk for infection are healthcare workers and family and friends of those who are infected.
Dr. Michael Angarone, an infectious disease specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, says that the first case of Ebola in the U.S. means that we are not immune to this infection.
“We need to, as Americans, be more alert and aware, but I don’t think we should worry that it will affect us daily,” Angarone says. “We should be cognizant but not afraid.”
Angarone says that the big issue with this outbreak of Ebola is that it is occurring in more populated areas of West Africa, including larger cities, not just in remote villages where earlier outbreaks have occurred.
“These countries lack the resources to take care of that many people who are sick,” Angarone says. “The healthcare clinics there can get overwhelmed very easily.”
The CDC predicts that by January 2015, between 550,000 and 1.4 million people could be infected in just Liberia and Sierra Leone.
“We, in the United States, come from a world of excess and we’re trying to be more conscious of those who are in need,” says Jen Wolff, development and relationship manager at Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach.
Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach was founded in 2002 as a ministry of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis. The organization has partnered with 61 hospitals, including Rush University Medical Center and Central DuPage Hospital, to send supplies to more than 75 developing countries.
In the past several years, Mission Outreach worked with the Archdiocese of Chicago and Rotary International to establish relationships with medical facilities in Nigeria. Through these relationships, the organizations have been able to transport life-saving supplies to facilities struggling under Nigeria’s impoverished healthcare system.
Now, to help stop the spread of Ebola, Mission Outreach is collecting impermeable gowns, facemasks, goggles, shoe covers and gloves from their hospital partners. The organization will ship these supplies to Nigerian medical facilities in 40-foot containers.
“We are collecting the supplies this month with such a sense of urgency,” Wolff says.
Individuals and companies can make financial donations that will cover the costs of the supply containers and their shipping expenses. Financial donations can be made online here.
