An Atlanta hospital is preparing for a new patient with Ebola. Emory University Hospital said Thursday that it is readying an isolation unit for an infected patient, expected to arrive 'within the next several days.'
The university said it did not know whether the patient would be one of the two Americans fighting the infection in Liberia, including Fort Worth physician Dr. Kent Brantly.
The isolation unit at Emory was built in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to treat patients with certain infectious diseases.
NBC 5 tracked an air ambulance taking off from Cartersville, Ga., not far from the CDC and Emory University Hospital, at about 4 p.m. Thursday.
The air ambulance is owned by a company that works with the CDC.
Pictures provided by the CDC show what the medical evacuation aircraft looks like. It contains medical tents that are used to isolate patients from medical staff.
The isolation and security measures are similar to those in place inside the units at Emory University Hospital, according to Dr. Seema Yasmin, medical expert for The Dallas Morning News and a former CDC disease investigator.
'The way that these two patients would be transported on the plane, and any other transport facilities, is done in a way that prevents them from passing the virus to anyone else,' said Yasmin.
Emory University Hospital sent to its staff the following memo Thursday:
'We have a highly specialized, isolated unit in the hospital that was set up in collaboration with the CDC to treat patients who are exposed to certain serious infectious diseases. This unit is physically separate from other patient areas and has unique equipment and infrastructure that provide an extraordinarily high level of clinical isolation. In fact, Emory University Hospital is one of just four facilities in the entire country with such a specialized unit.'
According to the CDC, the chance of the virus traveling undetected to the United States is extremely low. In the rare instance it did, the CDC says the country is well-equipped to manage and treat it so that there would not be an outbreak.
It's extremely difficult to get the virus, according to doctors. Ebola is not airborne and is instead transmitted by direct contact with bodily fluids, such a vomit, feces or blood of infected persons, living or dead.
It is also important to note that a person with Ebola is only contagious when symptoms are present, according to Yasmin.
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