Health Minister Fuad Khan is concerned that the Ebola virus may have found a new way to spread. Khan was reacting to news that broke yesterday of a US healthcare worker tested positive for the virus, becoming that country’s first case of the disease being contracted or transmitted locally. The female victim was part of the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital medical team that cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, a patient who later died from Ebola. This, although she wore full protective gear.
Speaking yesterday, Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan said the development “was more cause for concern” for local authorities. He said the situation raised some critical, as the healthcare worker had worn a mask, gloves, gown and shield when attending to Duncan. “She had the proper suit, yet still she became infected. We now have to look at another component of infectivity. Is there another way to become infected?” he said.
“We don’t have Ebola here,” Khan said, adding that there was a serious need to reinforce monitoring of people coming into the country. “We must seriously look at guarding our borders,” he said, adding that a team was already working on early detection of travellers arriving at ports of entry with symptoms. “It may very well come down to having to quarantine people coming from West Africa and those interacting with them,” he said.
He said revised travel health forms should be ready to be introduced as early as next week. The forms are designed to secure a passenger’s detailed history as to their travel within the last six weeks, the reasons for their visit, places visited, and their interactions with those abroad. Urging citizens to take their own precautions, Khan said, “This could mean that people may even stop shaking hands—no acknowledgment, kissing or even touching.”
over 4,000 dead
More than 4,000 people have died in the ongoing Ebola epidemic centered in West Africa. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures published last week, almost all of those deaths have been in the three worst-affected countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Ebola symptoms include severe fever, weakness, severe muscle pains, severe headaches, sore throat, profuse vomiting and diarrhoea, and a skin rash.
The virus may incubate the body for 21 days before the symptoms appear, and a blood test only becomes positive after three days of symptoms appearing. Ebola spreads through close contact with a symptomatic person’s bodily fluids such as blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva and semen. The WHO says blood, feces and vomit are the most infectious fluids.
first signs:
Duncan arrived in the US from Liberia to visit family on Sept 20, and first sought medical care for fever and abdominal pain on Sept 25. He reportedly told a nurse he had traveled from Africa, but was sent home. He returned on Sept 28 and was placed in isolation because of suspected Ebola. He died on October 1.
Mersviral threat
Asked about the additional threat posed by the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), as T&T muslims travel to that region to make hajj, Khan said the same monitoring systems will apply. Mersviral is a respiratory illness first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Its symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. It is spread through close contact. So far, all cases have been linked to countries in and near the Arabian Peninsula.