₦airaland Forum

thegoodjoehunt3: I hope it gets to Nigeria soon. Nice development and good news.

CNN JUST IN: All existing doses of the serum ZMapp, the experimental #Ebola drug, sent to West Africa. -@DanielleCNN

EkoIle1: And that critical and effective step is prevention..

Protecting your homeland is your number one duty and obligation including before other countries or entities.

thegoodjoehunt3: That is why our government has to work with them to fast track the process. We can not expect the Japanese and Canadians to be effective at their country while our govern EMT folds their hands.

Contact them, find their challenges and help them overcome it fast.

[size=14pt]Nigeria airport steps up Ebola screening measures[/size]

Wednesday 6 August 2014 05:50 REUTERS

Nigeria's Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos has stepped up its health screening measures after the nation's second Ebola case was confirmed on Monday.

The country's health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, said one of the doctors who treated Nigeria's first official case of Ebola has contracted the virus. The doctor treated Liberian citizen Patrick Sawyer, who was diagnosed with the virus when he arrived in Lagos on July 20 and who died of the disease five days later.

Lagos airport is now clearly on alert.[size=13pt] Passengers are screened to determine whether their body temperature is abnormal. Authorities say arrangements have been put in place to detect anyone coming into Nigeria with the Ebola virus.

"What we do is, the airlines must first, at the point of departure, ensure that they do not board passengers with the ailment. And on arrival here, even before the arrival, we have the manifest of the passengers that are coming, and they have forms to fill as they arrive," said Yakubu Datti, general manager of corporate communications, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.

"We have a medical team from the ministry of health under the port services that inspects their medical history and also have some equipment where they check without having personal contact. And all that is done on arrival even before the immigration.“

And if there is any suspicious passenger, the passenger goes to this holding area, which we have provided for further investigation, or interrogation. After which, if it is established that he's a carrier, we have a quarantine area where the patient will be quarantined for necessary action," Datti continued.[/size]

Nigerian authorities have been running a media campaign to inform people about Ebola and what to do to avoid it. Following the confirmation of Nigeria's second case of the virus, that campaign may be intensified.

thegoodjoehunt3: So now Fujifilm and Tekmira are in possession of experimental drugs for treating Ebola, our government should reach out to them now.

Support them financially. I believe that is why they are running to America to support them to perform their clinical trials.

Not only in Nigeria but the affected African countries.

thegoodjoehunt3: Protecting it from spreading is a means of shielding and not exposing. If we had done that earlier, it would not spread the way it has.

No one is saying do not protect the people but the most effective step is the most critical.

thegoodjoehunt3: I repeat, preventing the spread at the source would have been the most effective strategy. Not the only strategy.

thegoodjoehunt3: No line is saying it is completely useless. The most effective strategy would have been to contain the spread at the source earlier. Just as earlier fever screening would have been helpful.

The Americans screening now would not be as effective as them curtailing the spread in Africa.

thegoodjoehunt3: On that case, yes it would have worked. On the possibility of it entering, it would not have worked.

Yes, border control would help. I feel helping the fight against the spread generally would have been more effective.

[size=14pt]Asia on Alert for Ebola Outbreak[/size]

July 31, 2014 7:37 AMSteve Herman

The largest known outbreak of the lethal Ebola virus in West Africa is prompting authorities as far away as Asia to take preventive measures, although scientists say a global spread of the disease is unlikely.

[size=13pt]At South Korea's Incheon International airport, a major hub for air travel in Asia, quarantine inspections of arriving passengers are being enhanced.[/size]

Screening passengers

[size=13pt]Authorities say all passengers are being recorded by an infrared camera to detect fevers.

South Korea Foreign Ministry spokesperson Han Hye-jin says this is being done because Ebola is becoming a big concern. She says the South Korean government, in association with health authorities, is paying attention and carefully determining if additional measures are needed.

The country's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it established an Ebola task force in April and is prepared for possible infections in South Korea.[/size]

Citizens urged to avoid affected countries

It is also urging South Koreans not to visit the affected African countries.

Australia is also cautioning against travel to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Australia's chief medical officer, Chris Baggoley, says the possibility of Ebola arriving there is "very low." But all border protection agencies are on alert for possible symptoms in people arriving by air or sea.

Dr. Nicholas Day, director of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, says these enhanced port screenings, implemented in Asia during previous swine and bird flu scares, are no panacea."It hasn't really, to my knowledge, been conclusively proven that it's an effective public health measure. It makes people feel happier that something is being done. But remember that people with flu, for example, don't have to be symptomatic when they come through. If you're screening using an infrared camera for temperature detection it doesn't necessarily pick up people who are infected. The same is true for Ebola," said Day.

Incubation: 2 - 21 days

The incubation period of the Ebola virus is between two and 21 days, during which time an infected person might not show any signs of infection.

In Hong Kong, the Center for Health Protection says public hospitals will begin to report and test all those who developed fever who, within the past 21 days, traveled to the three affected African countries. Although there are no direct flights from west Africa to Hong Kong, the city's health minister, Dr. Ko Wing-man, expresses concern that infections could still enter the region via a plane flight.

Quarentine suspected cases

Hong Kong's health minister issued the warning following an emergency meeting held with specialists to discuss contingency plans should there be an outbreak there, some 13,000 kilometers from west Africa. Ko says, "suspected cases will be put into isolation as soon as they are identified."Hong Kong newspapers say 59 isolation wards are available at Princess Margaret Hospital for any suspected Ebola cases.The city has seen one scare, so far. A 39-year-old Hong Kong woman, who recently traveled to Kenya, was placed in isolation at Queen Elizabeth's hospital after vomiting and developing a fever. Hong Kong's Hospital Authority says she tested negative for the virus and has been released.

Health Minister: low public risk

Singapore's health ministry is urging the public there "not to be alarmed." It has issued a statement deeming Ebola to pose "a low public health risk to Singapore," in part because "there is low travel connectivity to West Africa where the current outbreak remains limited to."Singapore's Chiangi Airport is ranked the world's fifth busiest with more than 52 million passengers in 2013.Suvarnabhumi, just outside Bangkok, is one of the world's busiest airports with more than 30 million passengers passing through every year.

Thai officials say only 30 to 50 persons per week are believed to come from the countries with the current Ebola outbreak.So far, no special screenings for Ebola among incoming passengers are being implemented. But all hospitals in Thailand are being ordered to monitor patients for any related symptoms, particularly those who have traveled to the outbreak area.

Spreaded by direct contact with bodily fluids
Some airlines have suspended flights into the affected region. But health authorities say there is little risk of passengers contracting the virus on a flight from an infected person. Dr. Day, a tropical medicine researcher, explains Ebola is only spread through direct contact with blood, saliva and other bodily fluids."The reason why everyone is scared about this, and I think quite reasonably so, is that this is a particularly horrible disease. It's luckily quite difficult to transmit unless you're in actual physical contact with a patient. So with standard public health and clinical isolation, quarantine measures, it should be possible to contain any outbreak," said Day.

Since March, there have been more than 1,200 confirmed Ebola cases in West Africa. This is believed to be a new strain of the virus and nearly 700 of those infected in this worst-known outbreak have died.

Liberia is quarantining some communities, closing all schools and some markets while placing all non-essential government personnel on 30-day leave. Public gatherings have already been banned.

Sierra Leone's president, declaring a public health emergency on Thursday, called on security forces to enforce quarantine measures to prevent a further spread of infections.


No known cure

There is no known cure for Ebola. It was first recognized in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1976. There is no approved vaccine, but at least four are under development. Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever with a fatality rate in human of up to 90 percent. It primarily occurs in remote villages in central and western Africa, near tropical rain forests. The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals. Fruit bats are considered to be the virus' natural host.

Additional reporting by Youmi Kim in Seoul.

eaglechild: You really like circles.

Phew!
Schooling you is exhausting but i will try my best.

I mentioned that these guidelines are continually upgraded.

I also mentioned that WHO has just declared EBV a Public Health emergency of International Concern prompting a laid down protocol of handling PHEICs to be activated.

This happened on 7th August.

naptu2: It's a simple and straightforward question. Do you agree that if we had put people from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and people who had passed through these countries under surveillance and had treated them as high risk people and if we had equipped our immigration and airport officials with protective clothing, etc, that the chances of the disease spreading to the doctor, the nursing mother and God knows how many other people, would have been close to zero?

eaglechild:
lol
You want to take us back to that circle
You know you can always click on the link

I should not spoon feed you.
But i will just this last time.


3.1.4. Screening passengers at points of entry ( ports , airports or ground crossing) is not recommended

Screening of passengers at points of entry (arrival or departure) is costly and expected to have very limited impact because it is very unlikely to detect any arriving person infected with EVD. This is particularly true for EVD with its incubation period of 2 to 21 days and symptoms that are not specific. As part of this, the use of thermal scanners that rely on the presence of ‘fever’ in arriving passengers is costly, unlikely to detect any arriving person infected with EVD and is not encouraged.

Travel restrictions, closure of borders at points of entry are not recommended

Sensitise staff working at “points of entry”, in healthcare settings or involved in first response (emergency departments, ambulance services, GP offices, fire department, civil defence, airport operators, aircraft operators, port health authority) for early and advanced symptoms of viral haemorrhagic fever.

Emphasize systematic recording in health clinics of travel history of those with relevant symptoms.

.Establish a standard diagnostic procedure for EVD and for common differential diagnoses at an early stage (e.g. malaria, dengue, typhoid fever, shigellosis, cholera, leptospirosis, plague, rickettsiosis, relapsing fever, meningitis, hepatitis, yellow fever and other viral haemorrhagic fevers).

Establish a protocol for notification to the competent public health authorities at an early stage if an EVD case is suspected.

Identify and establish laboratory procedures and operational channels to perform Ebola virus diagnostic testing in the country or refer to the closest WHO Collaborating Centre or reference laboratories able to perform viral haemorrhagic fever diagnostics if cases are suspected.

Ensure basic training of health care workers on principles of provisional barrier and use of personal protective equipment.Emphasize to personnel working in the travel sector the importance of infection control methods.
Keep the regulatory authorities (e.g. national civil aviation authority) informed and involved in decision-making.

thegoodjoehunt3: Closing our borders, screening of passengers with Fever will not help. Our best bet is to get clinical trials of these experimental drugs from Japan's Tekmira and Fujifilm started.