The mobile isolator

A rolling metal gurney enveloped by a chamber of transparent plastic - this is the transportable isolator.

Patients with highly contagious diseases such as Ebola can be moved from place to place in such a contraption without presenting a danger to those around them.

Negative pressure inside the chamber ensures infectious air is transported from inside to out via large tubes - "cleaned," in the meantime, by an exchangeable carbon filter. Fresh air flows inside from a different port, guaranteeing the patient's oxygen supply.

Several secure access points also ensure that medical personnel can physically reach through to monitor the patient. A special air lock gate allows things from outside - medicine, for example - to be passed inside. "You can give infusions through zipper openings up top," explained Thomas Dietze at the central Bundeswehr hospital in Koblenz, Germany.

Bodily fluids mustn't leave the plastic isolator, since they are extremely infectious. Nor can thorough medical treatment be applied. But "simple measures, like handing the patient something to drink, can be conducted via the gate," Dietze told DW.

Transport from Africa

The isolator, however, is not to be used to fly any and all Ebola patients from Africa to Germany.

If a volunteer, a doctor or a nurse is infected with Ebola in Africa, they can be placed inside a transportable isolator and flown back to Germany in an army Airbus, Dietze said.

"The Bundeswehr purchased this isolator to be able to fly Bundeswehr members in Liberia, or Red Cross personnel who did Ebola relief work there, back to Germany in case of emergency."

From the German army's perspective, then, it is for emergency deployment - and not general use.

Yet the the Israeli company Savion, which introduced the device in mid-November at "medica," the world's largest medical trade show in Düsseldorf, sees use for it in day-to-day infectious disease treatment as well.

"If there is no isolation room in a hospital, they can use our bed with the isolation chamber on top of it and keep the patient there for a few hours or a few days," said Ron Lev, the company's vice president.

Previously, the gurneys had only been used to transport the patient the short distance from an ambulance or airport to a hospital's isolation wing.

Keeping the plane clean

Before Germany's army invested in the equipment, however, it did due diligence: Its central hospital in Koblenz thoroughly examined the isolator tubes before signing on for ten isolators.

One principle advantage of the transportable units: The plane they're used on won't be contaminated, says Dietze.

"This hospital plane is used for all kinds of other missions as well. It was originally set up to airlift injured soldiers out of Afghanistan or wherever, and to do that under intense medical conditions if necessary."

Now the plane can also be used to fly an Ebola patient who's already displaying symptoms to a hospital in Germany.

Isolation is pricey

For the moment, the Bundeswehr's Airbus and isolator are in Cologne at an on-call unit. In the event of an infection, a patient would be picked up in Africa and flown to one of the seven German cities that have an isolation ward.

That center's personnel then remove the patient from the aircraft and take him or her to an isolation ward. That switch - from the contaminated isolator to the hospital bed - requires extreme caution.

The transport isolator cost 10,000 euros ($12,500). Flight costs then add to each mission's price tag: each hour, by Dietze's estimation, cost a further 10,000 eurosl.

Thus far, however, the hefty sums remain theoretical. The isolator has yet to be called into action.