Ebola: 10 multi-choice questions
1) What is the incubation period?
a) 21 days
b) 46 days
c) 62 days
Correct answer:
(a) If you are the World Health Organisation.
(b) If you are Watson Duke.
(c) If you are a returning T&T national who was briefly in Nigeria 41 days ago, and faces a 21-day quarantine on arrival home.
2) What does an isolation unit do?
a) Spread Ebola to nearby homes and schools
b) Isolate and care for infected people in carefully controlled conditions
Correct answer:
If you are a fee-paying parent with a child at the Ursuline Convent school in Barbados, the correct answer is (a). You must fight hard to block proposals for a nearby isolation unit.
3) A patient who was in Nigeria more than seven weeks ago complains of dizzy spells and vomiting. What is the correct response?
a) Check for routine infections?
b) Panic?
c) Refuse to treat him?
d) Refuse to let him leave the hospital?
Correct answer:
If you were a staff member at Mandeville Regional Hospital in Jamaica last weekend, the correct answers were (b), (c) and (d).
However, the patient, Dr Bob Banjo, turned out to have food poisoning.
4) If you are a doctor or health worker, you can best help control the disease by:
a) Volunteering to work on the front line
b) Studying the infection, its containment and treatment
c) Demanding four times your normal salary
Correct answer:
If you are Cuban, the correct answers are (a) and (b).
5) You are due to attend an important conference in Cameroon. Staying in a hotel, in that country, 450 km from the nearest Ebola case, is:
a) Very dangerous
b) A significant risk
c) Zero risk
No Ebola case has ever been recorded in Cameroon. The World Health Organisation's advice for outbreak countries is: "The risk of a tourist or businessman/woman becoming infected... is extremely low, even if the visit included travel to the local areas from which primary cases have been reported."
However...
Correct answer:
If you are a T&T delegate, the correct answer is (a) or (b).
6) A cruise-ship passenger is at very slight risk. Her home country wants her back for monitoring. The best response is:
a) Quick whizz to the airport, then medevac plane home.
b) Keep her on the ship. If she develops symptoms, let the cruise line deal with it. The resulting "Ship of Death" publicity will be great for
tourism.
Correct answer:
(a) If you're John Kerry.
(b) If you're Dean Barrow, Prime Minister of Belize.
7) The oil-producing country of Gabon is:
a) Riddled with Ebola
b) Near countries which are affected by the outbreak
c) Two thousand km from the current outbreak
Correct answer:
(a) If you're the OWTU.
(c) If you check Google Maps.
8) The proportion of Nigerians who died from Ebola in the recent outbreak was:
a) 50 per cent
b) 0.05 per cent
c) One in 20 million (0.000005 per cent)
Correct answer: (c)
9) If an infected passenger with no symptoms is on an aircraft, the risk to crew and other passengers is:
a) Close to zero.
b) Significant.
c) High.
Correct answer: (a)
10) If an infected passenger who shows symptoms is on an aircraft, crew and other passengers are at risk if they:
a) Breathe the air circulating in the cabin.
b) Touch the patient's body fluids.
c) Touch a surface contaminated by infected body fluids.
Correct answers: (b) and (c)