Tracey Stevenson
2 Haiku Decks
Case Study: Outbreak From Africa
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- Three Registered Nurses (RN) and two Medical Doctors (MD) return from a medical missions trip in Katima Mulilo, Namibia, which is located in the Southern Region of Africa. This is a border town which borders Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Angola.
- During their stay, they volunteered in the located hospital working in the labor and delivery unit, as well as providing educational classes to new mother’s on infant care
- Due to the increased population of tuberculosis cases in the area, the hospital they volunteered at had a tuberculosis clinic, located next to the labor and delivery unit
- After returning from the missions trip, the RNs and MDs return back to work on their hospital unit
- About three weeks after their return, one of the RN’s develops a chest cough, weakness, fatigue, and loss of appetite. After attempting to come into work with what she believes is a cold, she leaves work early as the severity of her fatigue and cough increases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012)
- Later in the week, the RN begins to cough up a small amount of blood tinged sputum blood (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012)
- The RN goes to her primary care physician’s office and receives a tuberculin skin test. After returning later to get get the test read, the results are positive. The RN then receives a chest x-ray which further show the RN has active tuberculosis (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014)
- The RN had likely been exposed to tuberculosis at some point on her Medical Missions Trip. After not being tested for tuberculosis after returning to work in the United States, the RN had likely exposed multiple people, including mothers, fathers, family members, newborn babies and fellow co workers in the hospital to the tuberculosis virus (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012).