The United States and Canada announced stepped-up airport screening
measures Wednesday to look for passengers carrying Ebola, as the deadly
virus killed a Liberian man in Texas and the worldwide toll neared
3,900.
The spillover of the virus – with the first diagnosis in United
States and the first case of infection in Spain – has raised fears of
contagion in the West.
The world’s largest outbreak of Ebola has killed 3,865 people out of
8,033 infected so far this year, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest count.
As this developed, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the
appointments of three crisis managers respectively for Guinea, Liberia,
and Sierra Leone, where the Ebola epidemic is spreading and having
disruptive effect.
An announcement issued by his spokesperson said Ban appointed Marcel
Rudasingwa of Rwanda as Ebola crisis manager for Guinea, Peter Jan
Graaff of the Netherlands as manager for Liberia, and Amadu Kamara of
the United States as manager for Sierra Leone.
In their respective roles, the crisis managers will work with their
host government along with key stakeholders in ensuring a rapid and
effective international response to the Ebola crisis within their
respective country. The appointments are part of the newly established
United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER).
The WHO sought to contain concerns of a wider outbreak in Europe
after a Spanish nurse was infected, with regional director Zsuzsanna
Jakab saying sporadic cases in Europe were “unavoidable” but the risk of
a full outbreak was “extremely low.”
Dr. German Ramirez of Madrid’s La Paz-Carlos III hospital said
Spanish nurse Teresa Romero remembers she once touched her face with her
glove after leaving the quarantine room where an Ebola victim was being
treated.
“It appears we have found the origin” of Romero’s infection, Ramirez said, but he cautioned the investigation was not complete.
Romero was said to be in stable condition Wednesday.
Romero’s infection prompted the isolation of five persons and monitoring of dozens more.
Spain’s handling of the affair came into question after it emerged
that the nurse fell ill on September 30 while on leave after treating
the missionaries, but she wasn’t admitted to hospital until six days
later.
The nurse had gone to her family doctor during this period but “hid
the fact that she was a nurse that had been in direct contact with an
Ebola patient,” said Javier Gonzalez, the director of the Madrid
regional government health department.
Despite this infection in Spain, sophisticated health systems,
legions of doctors and nurses, and preparedness plans will probably
squash any big outbreaks of the lethal virus in Europe.
Extremely high vigilance is needed when caring for people with Ebola,
so doctors say even small lapses in infection control can allow for the
accidental spread of the virus to health staff.
In the Philippines, Ang Nars Partylist Rep. Leah Paquiz said the
government should now take swift and intense efforts to prevent the
entry of the dreaded disease in the country.
Rep. Paquiz said so far luck is on the side of Filipinos who were
able to dodge various pandemics that have affected other countries, but
warned that health care must not rely on good fortune alone.
In a media forum in Quezon City, Paquiz said government must now put
in place fool-proof measure that would block the entry of persons
carrying the deadly Ebola virus considering the Philippines is still
unprepared to deal with the deadly virus.
In Washington, officials announced increased screening at five major
airports, including in New York, Washington, Chicago, Atlanta, and New
Jersey.
And Canadian health minister Rona Ambrose said passengers arriving
from west African countries affected by the epidemic must go through
tightened controls, though she didn’t specify where these would take
place.
Meanwhile, two people were hospitalized in Los Angeles and Dallas for possible exposure to Ebola.
The Los Angeles case, concerning a patient who’d traveled to Liberia, turned out to be a false alarm.
In the Dallas case, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief
Tom Frieden said, “there is someone who does not have either definite
contact with Ebola or definite symptoms of Ebola who is being assessed.”
Ebola is transmitted by close contact with the bodily fluids of a
person who is showing symptoms of infection such as fever, aches,
vomiting and diarrhea, or who has recently died of the hemorrhagic
virus, experts say.
