The Canadian
Science Centre for Human and Animal Health is located in Winnipeg
Canada. It is one of only a few places in North America with the
clearance and equipment to handle Ebola. Last month there was an
incident at the is laboratory that showed that even the label of
BSL-4 does not make you immune to mistakes or equipment failures. On
November 7th an employee noticed a split in his suit’s
seam when he was doing the decontamination procedure while exiting
the lab from working with Ebola virus. The employee was immediately
given the experimental Ebola vaccine as a preventative measure. The
employee was also placed on 21 days of self-isolation. There were no
symptoms that formed and he was eventually released. This did cause
major changes in the safeguards that the facility uses including
better record keeping, testing, and inspection. One thing that is
concerning is that they were utilizing the same suits for up to 5
years. This is most likely the weak link in their safety procedures
as usage of a suit for that can definitely reduce the effectiveness
of protecting the wearer as wear and tear is accumulated.
-Vander Harris
No comments:
Post a Comment