By Nicole M. Wells, Special Writer
CRANBURY— County and state health officials briefed the township Board of Health on Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) and Ebola during its meeting on Nov. 3, Mayor Susan Goetz said at Monday night’s Township Committee meeting.
“They talked about the general characteristics of each one of those diseases and preventative measures that an individual should take,” she said.
According to the information provided in the hour-long presentation, enteroviruses have been known to exist for a number of years. EV-D68 affects children more frequently than adults and more severely.
“Most of us have had a related virus at some point in our life so it doesn’t affect us as severely,” Mayor Goetz said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, the number of confirmed cases of EV-D68 is much greater this year than in previous years.
From mid-August to Nov. 6, there have been a total of 1,116 people in 47 states and the District of Columbia with confirmed cases of EV-D68, according to the CDC’s website.
The discussion on Ebola was “interesting,” Mayor Goetz said.
“Just so people know, we do have an Ebola action plan in Cranbury,” she said. “Chief Rickey Varga, who is the head of the Office of Emergency Management, has been going through an extensive amount of training and meetings with the county on this.”
According to Mayor Goetz, 911 operators have been trained to ask questions to determine if Ebola is the reason for the call. If the caller answers the questions in such a way as to make the operator believe Ebola is a possibility, the operator would tell the caller, and everyone with the caller, to stay in the house.
The operator would then notify county health officials and township police and first aid personnel would respond to the call. Mayor Goetz said that the fire department would not respond to an Ebola call.
“The goal is to have as few people respond as possible,” she said.
Police would secure the site and help first aid responders get into protective suits before entering the house but would not enter the house themselves.
Once first aid responders had entered the house and identified the potential patient, he or she would be taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick for evaluation, according to Mayor Goetz.
County health officials would then assess the situation and determine if the house would need to be decontaminated and if those remaining in the house would need to be quarantined.
“Our first aid has all the equipment that they need so it’s not going to cost us anything at this point,” Mayor Goetz said. “They’re well suited, they got well suited after September 11th and, lucky for us, they’ve never needed to use the equipment.”
First aid personnel are trained in how to use the equipment every year, according to Mayor Goetz.
The first laboratory-confirmed case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States was a man who had traveled to Dallas, Texas from Liberia at the end of September, according to the CDC’s website. The disease had not previously been seen in the United States.
According to the CDC’s website, subsequent cases of Ebola included two healthcare workers who had treated the Dallas patient, as well as a medical aid worker who had returned to New York City from Guinea.
Responding to an inquiry by The Cranbury Press for information on the township’s new Ebola protocol, Chief Varga said in an email dated Oct. 22, “I have attended some training and I am preparing response procedures. Nothing to report at this time.”

