12 Maryland Hospitals Received Ebola 'Pathogen Training' Just Before COVID-19 Outbreak: Journal 'Health Security'

The new study follows report Colorado healthcare workers receive live “shedding” Ebola vaccine down the road from proposed Ebola bat research lab.

A new study published online Friday by Johns Hopkins researchers in Health Security—a peer-reviewed journal researching epidemics and disasters—confirms that healthcare workers at the Maryland Department of Health have received “special pathogen training” for Ebola.

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The news follows recent reports of Denver Health healthcare workers being injected with Merck’s live Ebola vaccine ‘ERVEBO,’ which “sheds” more than 31% of the time. The vaccination measures were taken “in the event of a future outbreak.”

At the same time, a new $12 million, U.S.-taxpayer-funded bat lab that will reportedly potentially study Ebola is being built in Fort Collins, Colorado, just 65 miles north of Denver Health.

The new study out of Maryland is warning hospitals about potential outbreaks of “high-consequence pathogens” like Ebola:

“Healthcare workers (HCWs) at community hospitals, also known as frontline hospitals (FLHs), may encounter patients with possible infectious diseases, including those caused by high-consequence pathogens such as Zaire ebolavirus,” it reads.

Frontline hospital staff who attended a training program were given strategies for encountering patients infected with Ebola.

“We created and piloted a 1-day, in-person, didactic and skills training program to determine the feasibility and acceptability of implementing an educational program to enhance the knowledge and skills needed to respond when a patient with a potential HCP presents to an FLH,” the study authors explain.

The Maryland Department of Health asked all 104 state frontline hospitals to participate in the pilot training program.

Healthcare workers from 12 (75%) of the 16 interested hospitals participated in the program before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health staff were trained on how to manage dangerous viruses.

“In addition to pathogen-specific training based on the Identify, Isolate, and Inform framework, we provided skills training in the proper use of personal protective equipment, spill cleanup, and removal of an incapacitated HCW from an isolation area,” the study reads.

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Follow Jon Fleetwood on Instagram @realjonfleetwood / Twitter @JonMFleetwood

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The study authors’ affiliations include:

• Department of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD

• Department of Internal Medicine, Jacobi Medical Center, Bronx, NY, MPH

• Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

• Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY,

• Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA

• Early Pipeline Vaccines, Rockville Center for Vaccines Research, Rockville, MD

• Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea

• MercyOne Northeast Iowa Family Medicine and Residency, Waterloo, IA

• Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, the Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD

• Division of Infectious Diseases, the Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD