Nurse lives in fear after Congo fever contact
A THIRTY-six-year-old nurse established a new routine this week — she walks into her home, ignores her children’s welcoming arms and heads directly for the bathroom to scrub herself clean.
Only then can she tuck them in to bed, hoping she has not brought home a life-threatening virus.
The nurse, who cannot be named, began treating Charles Marshall, 42, a cattle farmer from Belfast in Mpumalanga, a week ago.
Marshall was brought to the Life Midmed Hospital in Middelburg, Mpumalanga complaining of fever. He also had bleeding gums. A day later, tests confirmed that he had contracted Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases was alerted.
Nurses who came into contact with him were warned to “watch their own temperatures”. People who have been exposed to a contaminated individual require close monitoring for 21 days.
According to the institute’s Dr Lucille Blumberg, Marshall is the fourth person to be diagnosed with Congo fever in South Africa this year.
When another patient suspected to have contracted the same virus was moved to the nurse’s ward this week, she
Of the 53 cases reported in 13 years, 34 people survived
prayed that she would not be assigned to look after him.
“The hospital falls short when it comes to the isolation of patients. Our intensive-care unit is also a problem — it is open plan and you have patients lying next to each other, whereas critically ill patients should really be separated,” she said.
According to the institute, which sets the guidelines on how to control infectious diseases, “infection control measures include the isolation of patients and barrier nursing”.
“Marshall was first in casualty and was then admitted to ward six, then moved to ward five. And when he showed complications, they moved him to ICU,” the nurse said.
Dr Frew Benson, the department of health’s communicable diseases cluster manager, said that there had been no incidents of hospital-acquired cases of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever at this stage, or over the last number of years.
“We annually have around 10 cases associated with agricultural exposure in the Northern Cape and Free State,” he said.
The virus is transmitted to humans by the bite of the Hyalomma tick, also commonly known as bontpoot. Of the 53 cases reported to the Institute for Communicable Diseases in the past 13 years, 34 people have survived.
Some of Marshall’s colleagues on the cattle farm were admitted to a local hospital in Belfast as a precaution.
“Other people on the farm who work closely with Charles, including his wife and her sister, have had to have their temperature checked daily,” a neighbouring farmer told the Sunday Times.
Blumberg said Marshall, who was transferred to a Pretoria East hospital last weekend, would be in isolation for at least another two weeks at home to reduce the chances of infecting others. He was discharged from hospital on Friday.
The Pretoria hospital did not respond to questions from the Sunday Times.