B.C. buys EpiShuttles to transport high-threat pathogen patients

Health officials in B.C. have a new tool they can use if a highly infectious disease is suspected and the patient needs transporting.

RICHMOND, B.C. – With international travel so common, it’s not as difficult for rare and dangerous illnesses to appear in our country.

Now, health officials have a new tool if a highly infectious disease is suspected and the patient needs transporting.

It’s called the EpiShuttle.

The portable pod can seal in a patient to prevent them from infecting people around them.

“This is a new piece of equipment that we have to be able to safely transport patients who may be under suspicion for or diagnosed with a high-threat pathogen,” said Tracie Jones, a manager with the B.C. Biocontainment Treatment Centre based out of Surrey Memorial Hospital.

“High threat pathogens are those that are included as viral hemorrhagic fevers, so for example like Ebola, Lassa fever, Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever.”

It’s small enough to fit in an ambulance – or aircraft – and resembles an infant incubator.

And it has glove ports that allow medical staff to treat patients without the need to wear personal protective equipment, which can take a long time to put on and can be distressing for those being treated.

“In my career, there was the avian bird flu, there’s obviously COVID,” said Jade Munro, a critical care paramedic. “With the use of the EpiShuttle, definitely we’d be doing things a little different if we were to repeat those experiences.”

The Norwegian device was created by experts who responded to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

“It safely contains the patient to be able to transport them from another area to ours – at the Biocontainment Unit at Surrey hospital,” added Jones. “It allows us to safely move them through an area that will reduce the risk to the public and to other staff.”

Each EpiShuttle costs US$95,000.

B.C. now has two of them, one that is ready to use, and another that’s there as a backup.

Both are on standby at a temporary training facility at Vancouver International Airport.

Various experts from Fraser Health, BC Emergency Health Services and Health Emergency Management BC have received training on how to use the device.

B.C. has had a handful of suspected high threat pathogen scares in recent years that ultimately didn’t pose a risk to the public – but health-care workers are glad to have a new tool just in case.