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San Francisco health officials outline Ebola preparedness, stress contact tracing and hospital readiness
Summary
San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH) gave commissioners a communicable-disease briefing focused on Ebola, describing how cases spread, local readiness steps and the strain of contact tracing; DPH said there were no local Ebola cases and that hospitals have isolation capacity.
San Francisco health officials on Wednesday presented an Ebola preparedness briefing that emphasized intensive contact tracing, hospital infection controls and coordination with state and federal partners.
"We don't have an Ebola case here in San Francisco at this time," Dr. Cora Hoover, director of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, told the Health Commission. She outlined communications work (provider advisories, fact sheets and a media hotline), outreach to hospitals and first responders, and coordination with the quarantine station at San Francisco International Airport, the State Department of Public Health and the CDC.
DPH staff summarized the 2014 West Africa outbreak, noting sustained transmission in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and an imported case treated in Texas. Presenters stressed that Ebola spreads by direct contact with bodily fluids and that the highest risk groups are health-care workers and close family caregivers. They said standard infection-control precautions—contact precautions, droplet and, when needed for aerosolizing procedures, airborne precautions—are central to preventing transmission.
Commissioners pressed staff on practical readiness such as isolation capacity and the risk of false alerts during peak respiratory season. DPH said its network of San Francisco hospitals has 132 isolation units available for suspected or confirmed patients and that hospitals are conducting drills and staff training on donning personal protective equipment, patient transport and waste disposal—areas officials said are resource- and labor-intensive.
DPH officials described the incident command system used to mobilize a citywide response and said staff with communicable-disease investigation experience are being identified to expand surge capacity if needed. Hoover said contact investigations can grow quickly—the Dallas case required follow-up for more than 100 contacts for a single patient—and that the department is planning regular updates to the commission as the situation evolves.
