On Friday, UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange was among five University of California hospitals identified by the state Department of Public Health as a priority hospital for the treatment of any Ebola cases that arise in the state.
Tonight, the UCI campus in Irvine brings together experts to discuss what the Ebola virus is, how it spreads and what is being done to prevent UCI Medical Center from having to treat any Ebola cases.
The public is invited to “Ebola: What You Should Know,” which brings together experts in the fields of virology, disease ecology, epidemiology, health economics and infectious diseases.
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Moderated by Andrew Noymer, UCI associate professor of public health, and sponsored by UCI's Office of the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor and several other departments, “Ebola: What You Should Know” also explores the chances of the virus spreading to the U.S. more than it has already, the economic impact of Ebola on West Africa and the world and whether local hospitals are ready for an imported case.
Panelists include: Michael Buchmeier, UCI professor of infectious diseases; James Jones, biological anthropologist at Stanford University; Dr. George Rutherford, professor and head of the Division of Preventive Medicine & Public Health and vice chair of the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at UC San Francisco; Victoria Fan, assistant professor of health policy & management at the University of Hawaii; and Dr. Shruti Gohil, associate medical director of epidemiology & infection prevention at UCI's School of Medicine.
The event begins at 6 p.m. in the Crystal Cove Auditorium at UCI's Student Center.
While the state has designated the UC hospitals in Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, Davis and San Francisco as being best positioned to accept and treat Ebola cases in California, it does not mean the U.S. State Department will transport Ebola patients to those medical centers for treatment. The State Department designation has been given to four hospitals in other parts of the country.
The Ebola panel flier follows on the next page …
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.