Ebola: UCTH takes delivery of protective equipment

Against the backdrop of Ebola virus spreading to Cross River State and its environ, THE  University of Calabar Teaching Hospital says it has taken delivery of all personal protective equipments and management requirements in case there is an outbreak of the Ebola disease in the state.Cross River State.

Thamos. Agan Chief Medical Director of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital disclosed this Wednesday at a one-day train the trainer workshop on Ebola prevention and control organised by  (UCTH) for the medical stakeholders in Calabar.

Agan said the training was meant to acquaint laboratory technologists with laboratory diagnosis, collection and transportation of specimen as well as prevention of Ebola transmission in the hospital and laboratory.

“Presently, we have taken delivery of all personal protective equipments and management requirements.  We will be taken through the epidemiology of the Ebola virus disease, clinical diagnosis and treatment, general prevention, strict isolation of cases, disease surveillance and quarantine social distance as well as control of environment,” he submitted.

He also said during the training, discussions on internal issues like burial practices and corpse management that may increase the risk of transmission would be undertaken.

Also speaking, a member of the World Health Organisation committee of experts on Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa, Professor Victor Inem has disclosed that even when victims of EVD might have been cured, there were still possibilities that they could re-contract the virus if they did not avoid body fluids from those infected and animals believed to be carriers of the virus.

He cautioned that cured victims should distance themselves from sufferers, avoid sex or wear condoms.

Speaking on the Overview of the EVD Outbreak in West African Sub-Region, he said; “It is very possible for cured victims to re-contract the virus when he brings himself closer again with sufferers through sex, other body fluids, eating of some animals which are reservoirs of the virus or through processes of buring victims.”

He warned against embalmment and unnecessary prolonging of  funeral services in parts of Nigeria where corpses are often touched and kissed before burial.

Professor Inem said the current panic should not be over-blown because there have been several epidemics since Influenza in 1918 and that, “this Ebola epidemic will equally subside and go.”

MIKE ABANG