An undisclosed number of people
who’ve been exposed to the Ebola virus (this is not just the four patients
publicly identified with diagnosed cases) have been evacuated to the U.S.
by an air ambulance company contracted by the State Department.
“We
moved a lot of other people who had an exposure event,” said Dent Thompson,
vice president of Phoenix Air Group. “Many times these people are just fine,
they just had an exposure. But you have to treat it as though the disease is
present.”
How
many exposed patients have been flown from West Africa to the U.S.? Thompson
said medical privacy laws and his company’s contract with the State Department
prevent him from revealing the figure.
“I’m
not avoiding it,” Thompson told Yahoo News. “I’m just not allowed to talk about
it.”
Five
weeks ago, medical missionary Dr. Kent Brantly became the first Ebola patient
to be treated in the U.S. He and fellow missionary Nancy Writebol were nursed
back to health in a special isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in
Atlanta and later released. Dr. Rick Sacra and an unidentified
doctor who arrived on Tuesday are currently being treated in the
U.S.
The State Department confirmed the
four known Ebola patient transports but couldn’t provide details on any
exposure evacuations to the United States. Phoenix Air, they said, is under
contract because of its expertise.
Thompson
said Phoenix Air has flown 10 Ebola-related missions in the past six weeks.
“Not
everything we do is [related to] a sick person,” he said, adding that the
company has also flown supplies. “We do basically whatever needs to be done.”
The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is operating an
around-the-clock Ebola emergency operations center, did not immediately respond
to an email seeking information about the exposure patient transports.
On
Monday, President Barack Obama, who has called the outbreak a U.S. national
security priority, pledged more U.S.
assistance to West Africa. The White House recently requested $30 million more
from Congress to help the CDC’s efforts with the crisis.
With
multiple government and aid organizations trying to tackle the unprecedented
epidemic, Thompson predicts his team will be flying more precautionary patients
back to the U.S.
“There
will be a certain number of people who, through no fault of their own, will
have an exposure event, and they are immediately identified and immediately
extracted,” he said.
Phoenix
Air’s modified Gulfstream III jets are “literally intensive care units with wings,”
Thompson said. He said even evacuees without a confirmed Ebola diagnosis are
placed in an isolation chamber for the 12- to 14-hour flight from West Africa
to the U.S.
“You
can never, ever let your safety guards down,” he said.
The
tentlike device installed on Phoenix Air's planes when biological containment
is required. (CDC/Reuters)
The
Georgia-based air transport company got involved in the latest Ebola crisis
when the Christian humanitarian group Samaritan’s Purse recruited it to
evacuate Brantly and Writebol. The State Department was involved in the
logistics, but the trips were funded by Samaritan’s Purse.
interior of the medical plane showing medical gadgets
Since
then, Thompson said, Phoenix Air has solely been under contract with the State
Department.
“It
became evident that we could no longer treat any of these flights as a private
or commercial flight,” said Thompson, declining to divulge the specifics of the
government contract.
Brantly,
Writebol and the latest patient have been treated at Emory University in
Atlanta. Last week, Sacra was flown to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Those hospitals, plus the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland,
and St. Patrick’s Hospital in Missoula, Montana, have specially-equipped
biocontainment units built in collaboration with the CDC. However, the CDC has
said any U.S. hospital following infection control recommendations and isolating a patient in a
private room is capable of safely managing an infected patient.
Thompson
declined to say where patients who have just been exposed to Ebola have been
flown to in the U.S.
“They
all go to a hospital and they monitor them,” he said. “If they do develop it,
then they treat them. And, fingers crossed, they’re going to walk out the way
Brantly and Nancy Writebol walked out.”
