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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Fuad: T&T ready to tackle Ebola virus

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20140803

Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan is as­sur­ing the na­tion that T&T's health­care sys­tem is ful­ly pre­pared to deal with an out­break of the Ebo­la virus.In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Khan said the min­istry has been close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the virus fol­low­ing sev­er­al out­breaks in Africa."The virus was con­tained and then it resur­faced. We have been mon­i­tor­ing this to see how best we could im­prove our own sys­tems," Khan said.He said lo­cals trav­el­ling to and from Africa must have them­selves checked by a doc­tor if falling ill.

But, he said, the virus has a 21-day in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od and there­fore symp­toms would not be im­me­di­ate­ly de­tect­ed."We are ready. We have things in place and we are ful­ly pre­pared to deal with any out­break of an Ebo­la virus. We al­so have sur­veil­lance meth­ods in place re­gard­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el. The Ebo­la virus has a 90 per cent fa­tal­i­ty rate and that is very wor­ry­ing," Khan added.

The Health Min­is­ter said he was con­sid­er­ing in­tro­duc­ing ther­mal cam­eras at the ports of en­try to pre­vent the spread of the chikun­gun­ya virus, com­mon­ly called ChikV.A ther­mal cam­era, al­so known as FLIR (for­ward-look­ing in­frared), is a de­vice that cre­ates an im­age us­ing in­frared ra­di­a­tion, which is heat. The mea­sure­ment of the in­frared light il­lus­trates and makes vis­i­ble the heat ra­di­a­tion from the ob­ject.

About Ebo­la

�2 The Ebo­la virus be­longs to a fam­i­ly of virus­es that caus­es haem­or­rhag­ic fever and has a mor­tal­i­ty rate of up to 90 per cent

�2The virus is trans­mit­ted from an in­fect­ed per­son via his/her body flu­ids and se­cre­tions, in­clud­ing sali­va, blood, se­men, urine, stool, and sweat. A com­mon way it is spread is through ob­jects, such as nee­dles and soiled linen, that come in con­tact with in­fect­ed body flu­ids.

�2 Ear­ly symp­toms may be flu-like and in­clude: headaches, fever, joint pain, sore throat and fa­tigue. As the dis­ease pro­gress­es more se­ri­ous symp­toms de­vel­op such as di­ar­rhoea, vom­it­ing, a rash, and ex­ter­nal and in­ter­nal bleed­ing.

�2 The in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od–the time in­ter­val from in­fec­tion to the on­set of symp­toms–is two to 21 days, dur­ing which there is no risk of trans­mis­sion.

�2 Coun­tries af­fect­ed by the cur­rent Ebo­la out­break in West Africa in­clude: Guinea (336 cas­es), Liberia (100), and Sier­ra Leone (473). Re­sult­ing in over 600 deaths, the cur­rent out­break is the worst ever.

�2 No vac­cine is avail­able for the Ebo­la virus.

�2 No cure is avail­able and treat­ment is lim­it­ed to sup­port­ive ther­a­py, which in­cludes oral re­hy­dra­tion and in­tra­venous flu­ids.

(World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion)


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