Nutter joins Ebola media epidemic

A DAY after City Council held a four-hour hearing on Ebola, Mayor Nutter and his top safety officials briefed members of the press yesterday on the city's preparedness, in the unlikely event that cases of Ebola appear in Philadelphia.

Nutter said the city is prepared to handle infectious diseases, just as it has been in the past when there were concerns over Anthrax, H1N1 and SARS.

He said that although the risk of contracting Ebola is still very low, using an abundance of caution is a matter of good faith.

"There is a line, I believe, between actively informing the public and potentially scaring the hell out of people," he said. "So I think we have to be very, very careful about what we say and how we say it."

Michael Wolf, the state Secretary of Health, echoed those sentiments during a conference call with reporters yesterday, noting that although there are no cases of Ebola in Pennsylvania, the state is prepared.

"Our focus in Pennsylvania is on ensuring our processes and protocols are as stringent as they can possibly be," he said. "In Pennsylvania, we are not waiting. We're working every day, all hours of the day to do everything we can to prepare."

The fear of Ebola escalated in recent weeks with news reports of a case that claimed the life of a man in Dallas and infected two nurses who cared for him.

During a City Council hearing on Thursday, officials from the city's public health agencies, Fire Department and airport testified before a Council committee about the city's readiness in the event of the unthinkable.

City Health Commissioner James Buehler said yesterday that officials have been working to ensure that the West African community is informed and has access to the necessary resources.

"If you've traveled in the last 21 days from a country in West Africa, where this outbreak remains active, and you have symptoms such as fever, vomiting, diarrhea, then the thing to do is to call 9-1-1," he said.

"Since the outset of this problem, we have been working to make sure that we are fully abreast of all the latest federal guidelines and recommendations - the latest data and the latest evidence that we can take and then translate and apply and push out to all Philadelphians."