Demand up for Mundelein company's Ebola-fighting gear
The Mundelein-based health supply company Medline is seeing huge demand for its protective equipment as hospitals take pro-active measures to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus.
Medline officials say they're fielding hundreds of calls a day from hospitals around the U.S. interested in ordering products like isolation gowns, exam gloves, body covers and several types of face shields, said Stephanie Pasko Nelson, vice president of marketing for the preventive division.
“We see that the hospitals are doing their homework and getting their information from clinical experts. They are then calling us to see what we have to offer,” Pasko Nelson said. “Hospitals are working on their protocols. They are reviewing them and looking to see if additional products are needed.”
Medline has donated thousands of its products to hospitals in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, to help stop the spread of the Ebola virus in west Africa.
Medline also saw high demand for its protective supplies during the bird flu outbreak in 2012, as well as the H1N1/swine flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, back in 2003.
Other Ebola news
•O'Hare International Airport will begin screening passengers coming from west African countries for Ebola.
•The Illinois Department of Health plans to create a hotline later this week to answer the public's questions about Ebola, although there are no cases of the virus in Illinois.