The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week started training volunteer health workers heading to Africa to help fight the epidemic.
Dr. David Sugerman, an Emory University emergency room doctor heading soon to Sierra Leone, was among students in a CDC training session Monday in Anniston.
Sugerman, who also works for the CDC, said breaches in health workers' protective gear in West Africa have contributed to Ebola's spread.
"You realize going through these exercises how easy that is," he said.
"In Sierra Leone or Liberia or Guinea it's going to be quite hot and humid. And you start sweating. And some of the procedures, like placing an IV, you get pretty nervous with a patient that you know has a high viral load," he said. "Then you get fogged up and you get anxious and you could start pulling at your" equipment, which could be contaminated with virus. "So you have to mentally go through this a number of times and become well-versed. So it becomes a routine."
For U.S. hospitals, the CDC has issued guidance on how to spot suspicious cases and isolate them if necessary, with an emphasis on the importance of asking patients about recent travel to the outbreak region, where more than 3,400 people have died from the disease.
The lone Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States had traveled from Liberia but was treated and released the first time he sought care. At first, the Dallas hospital he went to said it didn't know about his travel; it later said that information was provided and available to the medical staff caring for him.