Missoula Health Official Explains Ebola Public Notification Procedures

Missoula’s St Patrick hospital is one of four facilities nationwide with rooms designed specifically to care for Ebola patients, but even if someone in Missoula suspected they had the disease, it could be quite a while before the public found out.

According to Missoula City-County health department Health Promotion Director Cindy Hotchkiss, Ebola is one of 68 diseases that requires early reporting.

"The way that it works is, basically this: if a provider were to get a patient into their office, and they were suspecting that the patient had Ebola, then they could go ahead and run the test for it," Hotchkiss said. "But, even before they got the tests back on that, they should contact the Missoula City-County Health Department and our Infectious Disease Department."

The local health department would notify the Montana Department of Health and Human Services immediately, but not the public.

"Obviously if we have an outbreak of something, or if we have enough numbers of a certain thing going on, then we do certainly alert the public, but if we have only one certain case of something like that, we don't want to ensue any kind of panic," Hotchkiss said. "We also need to preserve the confidentiality of the person being tested."

Hotchkiss said that right now, the local health department is "keeping a close eye" on various individuals and organizations that have done aid work in Ebola affected regions of Africa.

If there is a full Ebola diagnosis, the public will "probably" be notified via a press release, much in the same way the state is notified each year with the first case of influenza.