Lassa Fever: An Old World Arenavirus Essay

The district nursing team were now to be responsible for the wound care of an ulcer on the sole of her right foot on her impending discharge. She had previously attended the practice nurse and a podiatry service based within her local clinic. Due to a change in circumstances, she was now clearly housebound for the near future due to mobility issues. Prior to an arranged visit, the patient had called the nurse to advise her that she was pyrexial and was experiencing a pain in her right foot that was different from her normal neuropathic pain, which was often problematic. She was also finding it difficult to mobilise and was disinclined for diet but was taking oral fluids.

On one of the placement on the ward, the student nurse was assigned to assist a patient. Alfred is a 65 years old man and was admitted with diarrhoea and generally unwell to the hospital. In the process of his admission he was isolated in a side room to prevent and reduce any risk of spreading infection. Alfred was a barrier nursed because he had clostridium difficile. He was isolated to lessen the hazard of spread of infections to other patients, visitors, and

There was additional backup staff present (including a respiratory therapist) that could have been called upon for help, yet they never were. The charge nurse or nurse supervisor could have stepped in at this point to provide additional help. A lack of present nursing staff and support can lead to unfavorable patient outcomes, as is the case with Mr. B. Additionally, the staff on duty could have lacked training regarding protocols or their training could have been out of date.

- Re-emerging diseases: Once controlled by preventative public health measures they are now on the rise

The nurse was clearly seeing that the Sarah was not capable of getting the help she

The nurse was asked what was hurting and "she replied that she was having head pain and a server headache", the next question which was asked what time the incident happened, and "she replied to it that it had happened around 16:30 hours and has been sitting here to see if the pain would go away", the next question which was asked if she wanted to go to the hospital, "she replied that she wants to go", The EMS crew then told the nurse to get up and move over to the stretcher located along the side of her and,"she replied that she did not want to go by a stretcher and, but she would prefer to walk out to the

than there was before, we still find it difficult to prevent the disease and yet have a large

It was almost midnight when I got the call from Dr. Seagraves. She told me to meet her in the physicians lounge at 7 am: we had a case. The next morning began like any other in the operating room. We met with the patient, I received permission to observe and then got suited up for case. The patient was an elderly African American woman, she called me handsome and smiled comfortably. When we made it into the OR I was asked to help lift the patient from bed to table, with a subtle warning of “watch out, it’s gooey.” Dr. Seagraves parted the patient’s gown, exposing a mass of raw tissue that somewhat resembled a leg. The patient had suffered a week’s worth of necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as flesh eating bacteria. The wound had a certain odor, a putrid smell you do not forget. Our hearts sank in unison as we realized what we were up against. We had to act fast. Dr. Seagraves began scrubbing the wounded tissue as the Anaestesiologist monitored the patient’s progress. I had observed Dr. Seagraves on multiple occasions and never did she express concern for the outcome. For the first time in our relationship I heard her mutter, “This is not good. This is not good at all.”

often left the nurses with feelings of inadequacy in meeting all of their patients' needs. In a

generations to come. Because this epidemic is a recent trend, it is hard to be sure on what may

I think that perhaps in third world countries it may be a ramped problem do to the fact that most people are not vaccinated against it. Even then, the only people who are usually affected by the disease are children under 2 years old. They are the main targets of this disease because they do not have adequate immune systems to fight of the bacteria. Now maybe back in the 1900's Whooping cough would have been an epidemic because of their very limited amount of technology and they would not have known how to treat the disease or how to contain it. Despite out new technology, get a grasp on Pertussis, it seems to spread even if a person has been vaccinated. Curious enough that the schools have started vaccinating for Pertussis and started giving out the shot like it was candy, not even worried about the effect that it would have on the population of school kids that have had the shot. Some case kids that have had “Whooping Cough” are being re-vaccinated and

Patient A was assigned several nurses during her three days stay at the hospital. Everything went well until the second night at the hospital room. A new nurse was

Suddenly she felt a stinging, then numbing sensation run up her legs and was strapped into a wheelchair. She was rolled into a very dark and presumably vacant room.

In Sweden, where I live, the disease is not even seen as deadly anymore. Only approximately 6,500 Swedes are today infected

Available all the protein sequences of Lassa virus were retrieved in FASTA format from UniProtKB(http://www.uniprot.org). Organisms other than Lassa virus and strains of Lassa virus causing effect on organisms other than human were excluded.