{"id":4686,"date":"2014-09-22T03:04:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-21T17:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=4686"},"modified":"2015-04-29T11:42:41","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T01:42:41","slug":"rch-responds-to-suspected-ebola-virus-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/rch-responds-to-suspected-ebola-virus-case\/","title":{"rendered":"RCH responds to suspected ebola virus case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2014\/09\/DSC05683-cropped-2.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4687\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2014\/09\/DSC05683-cropped-2.jpg\" alt=\"DSC05683 cropped 2\" width=\"400\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2014\/09\/DSC05683-cropped-2.jpg 400w, https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2014\/09\/DSC05683-cropped-2-200x140.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital (RCH) played a pivotal role in the activation of the state\u2019s Ebola Virus Disease Response Plan over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>A one-year-old child was admitted to the RCH from Frankston Hospital with suspected ebola virus, but was cleared of having the disease after testing.<\/p>\n<p>The child, who had recently returned from West Africa, was transported to the RCH Friday evening after receiving treatment for diarrhoea at Frankston Hospital.<\/p>\n<p>The RCH worked closely with the Department of Health and other authorities to activate the state\u2019s ebola response plan quickly and effectively. This involved placing the patient in a negative pressure room in intensive care, while doctors and nurses submitted blood tests and a throat swab for rapid testing at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory. The test came back negative within four hours, and the patient was later discharged.<\/p>\n<p>RCH clinicians caring for the child wore appropriate personal protective clothing.<\/p>\n<p>RCH Chief Medical Officer, Dr Peter McDougall, said the RCH and the Royal Melbourne Hospital had been planning for the possibility of an ebola virus presentation for many weeks, and this case proved the planning was robust.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the very unlikely situation where a child was confirmed as positive for Ebola virus, we have, fortunately, fantastic paediatric intensive care in our hospital. I&#8217;m very confident that if such a case was managed, it would be managed absolutely superbly,\u201d Dr McDougall said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNaturally, when this happens for the first time, there\u2019s considerable anxiety that we\u2019re handling the situation properly, but\u2026the teamwork was wonderful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Victorian Minister for Health, the Hon David Davis MLC, praised the RCH and its state health service colleagues for successful implementation of the response plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClinicians at both hospitals, Ambulance Victoria, our public health lab and the health department ensured a well-coordinated response,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The RCH played a key role in the activation of the state\u2019s Ebola Virus Disease Response Plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4688,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686\/revisions\/4688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}