Lassa Fever in the Heartland: Lessons from the Iowa Case and Regional Response

Mr. Michael Hartley retired as University of Iowa Health Care’s emergency manager in 2021 after a 30 year career with the institution. As a member of the leadership team for the UI Special Pathogens Unit (SPU) from its inception in 2014, he served as its operations manager working with a multidisciplinary team in overseeing the design and construction of the unit, as well as the quarterly training of the unit’s core team and conducting annual exercises. At the onset of a recent SPU activation for the management of a Lassa Fever case, he was asked to return to UI and serve in a consulting role throughout the response. Educated at the University of Iowa, he initially worked for a decade in prehospital care as a critical care paramedic until joining the UI Department of Emergency Medicine in 1992 as an instructor and research coordinator. In 2008, he joined UIHC Hospital Administration as the institution’s first emergency manager.

Ms. Angela Vasa is the Director for Emergency Preparedness and Special Pathogen Programs at the Nebraska Medical Center which includes serving as the PI for the Regional Emerging Special Pathogens Treatment Center and the National Quarantine Unit. Her nursing background includes over a decade of clinical experience with specialized expertise in the areas of trauma, critical care, solid organ transplant, and high consequence infectious diseases. She joined the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit team in 2009 and continues to be an active clinical member while serving as the program director. Ms. Vasa provided direct patient care for the patients with Ebola Virus Disease admitted to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit in 2014-2015 as well as the first individuals admitted to the National Quarantine Unit with SARS-CoV-2 in 2020.

She serves as the director of consultative services and metrics development for the National Emerging Special Pathogen Training and Education Center (NETEC), the division responsible for providing individualized consultations to advance special pathogen preparedness for healthcare facilities and EMS agencies. She leads the team in the development of readiness assessment tools to evaluate programmatic capacity and capability to respond to special pathogen events in hospitals, long term care centers, and EMS agencies in the United States.

Ms. Vasa completed the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiatives Fellowship through the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in 2016 and has contributed to multiple journal articles, peer reviewed publications, and presentations domestically and internationally.