The Ministry of Health is procuring a specialised bio-containment unit for the treatment of possible cases of Ebola, Chief Medical Officer Dr Colin Furlonge said yesterday. The unit, along with protective equipment for health care workers who may have to screen and treat possible cases of Ebola, is expected to cost the ministry between $5 million and $10 million.
“Of course the issue of recurrent expenditure will be significant as well,” Furlonge said after addressing a meeting of senior national security personnel at the National Operations Centre, Port-of-Spain. The meeting assessed the country’s preparations for the virus which has already claimed the lives of over 4,000 people in five west African countries.
While he admitted the equipment would take a little over a month to arrive, Furlonge said his ministry was still capable and prepared to deal with possible infections. In the event a case occurs in the interim, Furlonge said the ministry would use an isolation room at a hospital as a temporary measure.
“Although the risk is real, it is small. The risk of contracting it in our setting is small,” Furlonge said, as he noted that preparations would focus on training and equiping health care professionals and educating the population on proactive safety measures. Asked about the potential risk to health care workers, Furlonge said the ministry would train them in the latest international safety protocols for staff who may have to interact with infected people.
Referring to the recent case of a Spanish nurse who contracted the virus while treating a missionary taken to Madrid for treatment after being infected in west Africa, Furlonge said: “Those units were not specifically trained to deal with those cases.”
WHO rep: Ebola not airborne
Also speaking at the meeting was Dr Yitades Gebre, adviser on disease preventional and control at the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO)/World Health Organisation (WHO).
In presenting information on the virus gathered by WHO and its recommendations on containing the outbreak, Gebre rejected the suggestion of attempting to contain it by putting travel bans on travellers from the seven countries affected so far: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Nigeria and most recently Spain and the United States.
“Ebola is not airborne and can only be contracted through contact with bodily fluids. Usually a person suffering with Ebola is so unwell that they can not stand, yet alone walk on an aeroplane,” Gebre said. He said his organisation would host a seminar in Barbados next month where training on screening potential cases of Ebola, which he said was a vital tool in tracking and containing the ongoing outbreak, would be conducted.