Despite assurances otherwise from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not all American hospitals are equally prepared to deal with Ebola cases, ABC News' chief medical editor Dr. Richard Besser says.
"To do it safely, healthcare workers need to train and practice using protective equipment like they have been doing at the Emory and Nebraska facilities,"
Besser said Sunday to WFAA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Dallas.
Besser was talking about special biocontainment units at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Dr. Kent Brantly was treated at Emory and an NBC cameraman is being treated in Nebraska after contracting Ebola in West Africa.
Besser has reported on Ebola from Africa, as has NBC's medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who is quarantined after her co-worker contracted the virus.
"I would never have gone into an Ebola ward in Africa without being dressed and decontaminated by experts — health care workers here should expect no less," Besser said.
Dallas had the first case of Ebola diagnosed inside the United States. Thomas Eric Duncan, who had come to Dallas from Liberia, died last week in a Dallas hospital. One of the healthcare workers who treated him has now
tested positive for Ebola.
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