[Care of a patient with a rare and highly contagious virus disease. An emergency situation resulted in good preparedness].

Ever since the eradication of smallpox, Sweden has been poorly furnished with emergency facilities for the care of patients with serious, very infectious diseases. National interest in creating such facilities was aroused by epidemics of haemorrhagic disease (first and foremost due to Ebola virus during the present decade), at the same time as the first Scandinavian case of haemorrhagic fever associated with a risk of person-to-person infection occurred in Linköping. A special laboratory which has been set up at the Centre for Disease Control, in Stockholm, and University Hospital, Linköping, in collaboration with the Board of Health and Welfare, has introduced a high-security infectious disease unit for the care of such patients, with separate ventilation and waste-water treatment systems. The unit is also equipped to provide intensive care, and a laboratory can be rapidly set up and fully operative within 12-24 hours. Most important of all, personnel are available who are trained both for laboratory work and the care of such patients, and used to working as a team and familiar with the special protective equipment. If a patient can not be transported to the special unit, a team is available to travel to the hospital where the patient has been admitted, to give instruction and help to set up infection control routines and even supply protective equipment.