A doctor who worked with Samaritan's Purse in Liberia tells Greta Van Susteren that safety measures are needed to protect health workers in the U.S.
Dr. Linda Mobula, a physician who treated Dr. Kent Brantly in Liberia, told Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren Monday night that more should be done to better protect doctors and nurses who are treating Ebola patients in this country.
“According to MSF guidelines, after removing personal protective equipment, you are sprayed with a chlorine solution,” Dr. Mobula said. “That is what we did in Liberia. I think that, as an extra measure of safety, because you are ensuring that if there is Ebola virus that is on your gloves, on your gown, by spraying bleach on yourself, you are actually ensuring that the virus will die and basically providing an extra layer of protection.”
Safety became an issue when a nurse in Dallas contracted Ebola while treating a patient who died of the disease.
“I think this is a great opportunity to revise existing protocols and see how we can, as a nation and community, provide an extra measure of safety to all health care workers that will be exposed to Ebola patients. I think there will be more Ebola patients coming,” Dr. Mobula told Van Susteren. “I think we need to make sure that all health care workers are safe.”
Dr. Mobula has worked with Samaritan’s Purse in the aftermath of disasters in Haiti and the Philippines, and most recently with our medical team responding to Ebola in Liberia. She administered the experimental serum when Dr. Brantly was in critical condition.
“We weren’t sure Kent Brantly was going to survive,” she said. “All I could think of was his family. I prayed. I told God I don’t want him to die. We had given him every known treatment. We made the decision to administer ZMapp because there was no alternative.”
Editorial note: On October 15, a second health care worker from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas was reported to have contracted the Ebola virus.
