Austrian Red Cross, Styria, online magazine, June 25, 2019
To be optimally prepared for an emergency, practice is essential. Therefore, the High Infection Transport Team (HITT) of the Styrian Red Cross practiced transporting a suspected Ebola patient on June 25.
For the exercise, the emergency control center received a call from a man who, after a recent stay in Africa, was suffering from symptoms of circulatory collapse, high fever, nausea, vomiting blood, and severe headaches and body aches. Based on his description of symptoms, the man was classified as a suspected Ebola case.
Patients with a life-threatening infectious disease like Ebola must be immediately isolated to prevent further spread of the virus. In such cases, the emergency response center immediately alerts the HITT, which is specially equipped and trained for these journeys. The staff are equipped with protective suits to protect them from infection, travel in a special transport, and are otherwise well-equipped to care for highly contagious patients.
To practice handling the suits and other equipment, the team regularly conducts drills like the one last Sunday: Following an alert, the HITT drove from the Graz-Umgebung district office, where the team's equipment is stored, to a single-family home in the municipality of Haselsdorf-Tobelbad, the assumed home of the exercise patient. Ten minutes after the emergency services arrived, the patient was in stable condition and could be transported in an incubator. In an emergency, the patient would have been transported directly to the Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the LKH Graz II, West Site. During the exercise, the HITT met at the Lieboch local office and was able to debrief the exercise procedures there.
You can read the entire article here: https://www.roteskreuz.at/steiermark/news/presse-und-medienservice/hitt-uebung