Some facts on how Ebola spreads

Ebola is contagious when someone is showing symptoms of the disease, which can start with vague symptoms, including  fever, flu-like body aches, abdominal pain and then vomiting and diarrhoea.

The disease spreads through close contact with a symptomatic person's bodily fluids such as blood, sweat, vomit, faeces, urine, saliva or semen. 

Those fluids must have an entry point such as a cut or scrape or someone touching the nose, mouth or eyes with contaminated hand or being splashed. 

That's why healthcare workers wear protective gloves and other equipment.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says blood, faeces and vomit are the most infectious fluids, while the virus is found in saliva mostly when patients are severely ill.

The whole live virus has never been culled from sweat.

What about more casual contact

Ebola is not airborne and is not like flu, measles or common cold.  For that reason, people don't get exposed by sitting next to someone who has the virus in a bus.

Who gets tested when Ebola is suspected?

Hospitals with a suspected case call their health department to go through a checklist to determine the person's level of risk. Among the questions are whether the person reports a risky contact with a known Ebola patient, how sick they are and whether an alternative diagnosis is more likely. 

Health officials say bleach and other hospital disinfectants kill Ebola. Dried virus on surfaces survives only for several hours.

Risk factors

Briefing regional health directors and medical officers charged to deal with Ebola in the regions at an Ebola Emergency Response Planning workshop organised by the Local Government Service in Kumasi recently, the Director of the National Ebola Control, Dr Bedu Sarkodie, was reported to have  explained that although Ghana had not yet reported any Ebola case, the risk factors in countries where the disease had claimed many lives and affected thousands were the same in Ghana. 

Those factors, he said, included hunting and eating of bush meat, hunting and eating of bats and person-to-person contact.

He appealed to Ghanaian hunters to be wary of dead or weak animals and advised those who dealt in bush meat to wear protective gloves and also ensure that the meat eaten was properly cooked. 

UN’s Ebola Emergency Response

Accra is a staging post for the UN’s Ebola Emergency Response and serves as the central point for sending vital medical supplies and personnel to Ebola-affected countries in West Africa.

Recently, a 15-member advance team of the UN Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), led by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of Mission, Mr Anthony Banbury, arrived in Accra to assist West African governments to fight the deadly disease.

The work of the team will mainly focus on preventing countries in the sub-region that have not yet recorded Ebola cases from recording any and also prevent the spread of the virus in the affected countries.

The establishment of the UNMEER followed the unanimous adoption of the UN General Assembly Resolution to provide a platform for a wide range of international efforts to put an end to the spread of the disease. 

The UNMEER will have its headquarters in Accra, with offices in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which are the three most affected countries.