In 2015, more than a dozen American aid workers in Sierra Leone were flown home to be monitored for Ebola.
None got sick, but, for three weeks, they stayed in Omaha, Bethesda, Md., and Atlanta near hospitals with special isolation units in case they did.
Now, thanks to a $19.8 million award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, UNMC/Nebraska Medicine will play an even bigger role in helping monitor individuals who may have been exposed to a highly infectious disease.
The award enables UNMC to develop the National Center for Health Security and Biopreparedness to monitor individuals, as needed, and teach, year-round, federal health care personnel procedures in treating highly infectious diseases.
The center, which will be housed within the planned iEXCELSM facility on the Omaha campus and completed in 2018, will be "a national resource," said Chris Kratochvil, M.D., associate vice chancellor for clinical research and one of the principal investigators on the project along with John Lowe, Ph.D., director of research for the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, and Shelly Schwedhelm, executive director of emergency preparedness and infection prevention for Nebraska Medicine.
The National Center for Health Security and Biopreparedness will include a unique U.S. quarantine facility for individuals who may have been exposed to an infectious disease, but are not symptomatic. The center will allow for monitoring and, if needed, transport to the nearby Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, where the medical center treated patients with Ebola during 2014-2015.
University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds, Ph.D., acknowledged the teamwork necessary to make the project a reality. "Nebraskans are too modest. We don’t brag enough. We need to be bragging about this one."