Fauci: Ebola response system still needs improvement

WASHINGTON — The federal government is revising protocols for health workers handling Ebola patients, a top health official said Sunday, one of several changes to the medical system resulting from the arrival of the disease in the USA.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institutes of Health center on infectious diseases, said Sunday on several morning talk shows that the federal government will be issuing new protocols calling for protective gear "with no skin showing."

Earlier Ebola protocols, Fauci said on ABC's This Week, "were really based on a (World Health Organization) model in which people were taking care of people in a different environment, essentially in the bush, as they say, in remote places almost sometimes outdoors. Those people did not have to do the tertiary care, intensive type of training that we do. So there were parts about that protocol that left vulnerability, parts of the skin that were open."

Such procedures were not protective enough for a modern health care system, Fauci said.

"Very clearly, when you go into a hospital, have to intubate somebody, have all of the body fluids, you've got to be completely covered," he said. "So that's going to be one of the things. The protocol will be finalized soon. But one of the things is going to be complete covering with no skin showing whatsoever."

Fauci also suggested Sunday on NBC that while he believes U.S. hospitals are now responding properly to Ebola — and potential cases are being funneled into four hospitals around the country for treatment — there needs to be a broader level of preparedness.

"We need to have more than just the four [units] in which you have people who are pre-trained, so that you don't come in, and then that's the first time you start thinking about it," Fauci said. "It can't just be four. We may not even need any more, and we hope we don't."

But Fauci added on CNN's State of the Union that even without more full-fledged care units, he believes all U.S. hospitals are capable of proper identification and isolation of potential Ebola cases.

On several programs, Republican senators again called for travel bans from African countries that are struggling with Ebola outbreaks.

"We should stop issuing travel visas from Liberia," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on State of the Union. He dismissed questions about whether a travel ban may be counterproductive, adding that "the doctors and the experts that are saying this are working for the administration and repeating the administration talking points."

There is no medical consensus on the value of a travel ban, said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., although there is a public "fervor" for it because "it makes sense logically when you think about how to stop something."

Part of the rising public concern about Ebola is due in part because of general distrust of the government because of other Obama administration missteps, said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., on NBC.

"If this was one incidence where people thought the government wasn't doing what the government was supposed to do, it would be much less of a reaction than we see now. There is long list of the government being one step behind – whether it's the border, the IRS, the Secret Service," Blunt said. "Now this health concern is more real than it would be if there wasn't a sense that the government is just not being managed in a way that people would want it to be managed."

The parade of talkers on the Sunday morning shows followed a White House meeting Saturday in which President Obama brought a variety of Cabinet officers and other officials to plot out the latest developments in the White House's Ebola response.

The White House provided only a brief summary of the 75-minute meeting, saying White House advisers updated him on the "contact tracing" process used to identify and monitor people who may have come into contact with the Dallas health care workers who contracted Ebola.

Ron Klain, the newly announced White House Ebola "czar," was spotted entering the White House at about 5:30 p.m., but did not attend the meeting because he hasn't officially started, White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri said. He is still completing paperwork and hopes to start in the next week, she said.

Klain — whose official title will be "Ebola response coordinator" — did meet separately Saturday with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough "to start to get up to speed," Palmieri said.

Those attending the Saturday night meeting included Vice President Joe Biden, the secretaries of Defense, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden.

Contributing: Gregory Korte