Guard against Ebola virus - Heath officials advise

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has instituted a national surveillance system towards the early detection of the Ebola virus disease in the country.

This follows the declaration of a high alert for the disease, which is reported to have been crossing borders within the West African sub-region.

The system will enable public health practitioners to observe, detect and monitor abnormal behaviours and health indicators of the virus.

The Head of the Disease Surveillance Department of the GHS, Dr Badu Sarkodie, who disclosed this in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra on Tuesday, said, however, that Ghana had not recorded any cases yet and there was, therefore, no cause for alarm.

He was quick to add that it was not an indication that Ghana was perpetually safe.

He explained that if reports had indicated that the virus had crossed various borders through movement by humans and animals believed to be hosts, it was possible it could get to Ghana.

According to him, the health sector was on its guard for any unlikely circumstance and had alerted all district and regional health facilities to be on the lookout for and pick out suspected cases for the necessary measures to be applied.

Intensive public education required

Dr Sarkodie said the Ebola disease had no cure, vaccine or anti-retroviral and, therefore, intensive public education aimed at emphasising its preventive measures was very crucial.

He said surveillance was a critical component of those preventive efforts. 

According to him, the prevention of  Ebola involved avoiding direct contact with the body fluid of infected people.

He advised healthcare workers to recognise cases of the disease when they appeared and use barrier isolation techniques to avoid direct contact with infected people.

Symptoms of Ebola 

Dr Sarkodie said the symptoms of Ebola included Lasser fever, which could lead to vomiting, diarrhoea and profuse bleeding from the eyes, ears and nose, as well as the mouth and rectum.

He, therefore, advised that anybody who experienced any of those symptoms should report immediately to a health facility.

Background 

Outbreaks of Ebola have been reported in parts of West Africa, particularly Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Parliament calls for strategy to deal with disease

Mark Anthony Vinorkor reports that Members of  Parliament Wednesday called for a national pre-emptive strategy to contain the growing threat of the deadly Ebola virus which has claimed lives in some West African countries.

They said the situation in Guinea and Liberia was very troubling because the virulent disease had the potential of affecting Ghana, which has the same limitation in terms of medical infrastructure as its neighbours.

The MPs were contributing to an urgent statement made on the floor of Parliament by the MP for Wa West, Joseph Yieleh Chireh, which  drew attention to Ghana’s vulnerability to the “molecular shark”, as some publications have branded the virus, because of the country’s proximity to states which are reeling under the effect of the hemorrhagic fever that has so far claimed over 50 lives in the subregion.

Mr Chireh recommended an interagency taskforce made up of personnel of the ministries of Health, the Interior and Foreign Affairs and the National Security  apparatus  to monitor the situation from the country’s entry points and take steps to provide relevant medicines.

He also advised that such a taskforce prepare an emergency team for eventualities and that intensive public education and awareness creation should be initiated on the Ebola virus.

Dr Richard Anane, the MP for Nyhiaeso, stressed the need for Ghana to prepare effectively “because the virus is very close” and the consequences are severe.

He advised that any education on the issue should target the how and why people could contract the disease, and urged  Ghanaians to avoid the consumption of unwholesome game, popularly called bushmeat.

He also urged the Ministries of Health and Agriculture to engage their counterparts in the sub-region to determine the spread of the disease and take measures to contain it.

The MP for Biakoye, Emmanuel Kwesi Banduah, also advised the country to prepare for any eventuality, saying the disease could hit the country soon.

The relevant agencies, he said, should carry out intensive education on the matter.

Other MPs called for urgent and wide-ranging stakeholder consultation to initiate action and constitute relevant teams to mitigate the effect of the highly contagious disease.

The Speaker, Mr  Edward Doe Adjaho, directed that those concerns be forwarded to the relevant ministries for action.

The Ebola virus is named after the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is near one of the first of two simultaneous outbreaks that occurred in 1976. The virus causes severe viral hemorrhagic fever.

Symptoms include severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. Afterwards, organs shut down, causing unstoppable bleeding. No vaccine or drug has been created to treat the virus and its fatality rate may rise as high as 90 per cent of all who develop the virus.

The virus is transmitted to humans from wild animals and between humans by direct contact with blood, faecal matter, sweat, sexual contact and unprotected handling of contaminated corpse. Scientist warn that the epidemic risks spreading due to mobility – both among humans and animals.