LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Some 15,000 funeral home directors will be meeting in Nashville this weekend and will be briefed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to handle Ebola patients.
Valerie Wages of the Tom Wages Funeral Home in Gwinnett County will be there. She took Channel 2's Tony Thomas through some of the steps Thursday that they're being advised to take.
"When the CDC and the World Health Organization give you guidelines, you take notice," Wages said.
Wages she believes more of her fellow funeral directors will begin to take precautions after the upcoming convention.
"Have you ever seen precautions to this extent?" Thomas asked Wages.
"Yep, back when the HIV virus came out. We were there again before everybody knew the form of transmission," Wages said.
Wages said the CDC has already given her some guidelines on how to handle an Ebola infected body.
The first is cremation, which eliminates any possible additional contamination from bodily fluids.
But even transporting the body to the crematory could be an issue, so health officials have told workers to wear breathing masks and hazmat style suits.
Funeral homes are also being told to bury any effected bodies in sealed caskets if a burial is a must.
Wages said in her profession, there seems to be more heightened awareness to this disease than others in the past.
"I think this is a real danger and we've got to be real careful with this," Wages said.
WSBTV
