Published on : Thursday, August 7, 2014
After The US and Saudi Arabia, India has taken a firm stand to control Ebola . The government has asked all citizens to defer any non-essential travel plans to West Africa. Also all travellers will be tracked arriving from the affected countries for atleast four weeks by the health surveillance system.
All travel plans will have to be postponed unless absolutely necessary said the Indian government. The affected places,Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria have been reported of 1,603 Ebola cases out of which 887 have died.
India will take strong steps in combating the virus. A detailed study of all those arriving or transiting from the affected areas will be conducted. They will need to report to the immigration authority of India, and the surveillance system will track these travellers for a stretch of four weeks to detect if any symptom of illness develops.
Certain hospitals are being prepared to make space for isolation wards and keep protective equipments for health care workers.
The symptoms for Ebola are fever, muscle pain, headache and sore throat initially that may advance to vomiting, diarrhoea, rashes and impaired liver and kidney functions. Some patients develop internal and external bleeding. The WHO says there is no vaccine or specific treatment. Therapy is supportive, intended to keep patients alive while their immune systems try to fight the virus.
However experts feel that it is more important to make health care workers aware of the virus and recognise its symptoms by correlating it to the travel history of a patient. But isolation is the key factor in controlling the disease feels director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Vishwa Mohan Katoch.
The Indian foreign ministry office declared that Indian diplomats in West Africa have been asked to track the 4,700 nationals living in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. A close watch is going to be kept on their health status and travel plans. Ebola cases have also stuck Nigeria where 40, 000 Indian citizens reside.
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