Bethel Med­ical Ex­perts Dis­cuss Coro­n­avirus

MISHAWAKA – The re­cent strain of coro­n­avirus, which has im­pacted more than 76,000 peo­ple world­wide, has yet to af­fect In­di­ana and the lo­cal com­mu­nity. Amer­i­cans have con­tracted the dis­ease only due to re­cent travel to af­fected ar­eas, and the gov­ern­ment is cur­rently quar­an­ti­ning re­turn­ing trav­el­ers in Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment air force bases. But even with the gov­ern­ment tak­ing pre­cau­tions to pre­vent the spread of the dis­ease within the U.S., Bethel’s di­rec­tor of health ser­vices and cam­pus nurse Dora Mad­sen be­lieves it is im­por­tant to be pre­pared for the virus in or­der to iden­tify the virus early and pre­vent the pos­si­ble spread of the virus. 

“The con­cern for [the virus af­fect­ing] Bethel is low, as thus far, per the CDC, im­ported cases of COVID-19 in trav­el­ers has been de­tected in the U.S. per­son-to-per­son spread of COVID-19 [and] also has been seen among close con­tacts of re­turned trav­el­ers from Wuhan,” Mad­sen. “But at this time, this virus is not cur­rently spread­ing in the com­mu­nity in the United States.” 

The head of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, Sylvie Bri­ant, MD, has said that the virus pro­duces mild cold-like symp­toms in up to 80% of pa­tients; with about 15% of those af­fected con­tract­ing pneu­mo­nia and 3-5% of all pa­tients need­ing in­ten­sive care.  

Con­sid­er­ing the re­cent out­break, which has af­fected hun­dreds of Amer­i­cans who have re­cently trav­eled over­seas, it is im­por­tant to know how to pre­vent ill­ness when trav­el­ing out of the coun­try. April Hart RN, MSN, FNP-BC, CNE and as­so­ci­ate pro­fes­sor of nurs­ing at Bethel Uni­ver­sity has some tips. 

“It's also im­por­tant to [find] out if you need any par­tic­u­lar im­mu­niza­tions for the coun­try or coun­tries you're plan­ning to visit,” Hart said. “While vis­it­ing the coun­try, us­ing only bot­tled wa­ter, in­clud­ing for brush­ing your teeth is im­por­tant, as well as avoid­ing street food.” 

Hart also sug­gests us­ing the Smart Trav­eler app from the U.S. De­part­ment of State which gives up-to-date in­for­ma­tion on the coun­try’s em­bassies, visa re­quire­ments, safety and se­cu­rity, lo­cal laws and health.  

Samuel Abra­ham, as­so­ci­ate pro­fes­sor of nurs­ing, also sug­gests avoid­ing sal­ads when trav­el­ing be­cause the let­tuce is usu­ally washed in tap wa­ter; how­ever, he added it is safe to eat fruits that can be peeled and well-cooked foods. He also added it can be ben­e­fi­cial to keep al­co­hol-based hand san­i­tizer handy as well as anti-di­ar­rheal meds.