Journalism of Courage
Four months after the World Health Organisation declared a global emergency on the Ebola Virus Disease, the state public health department has finally started training its ‘rapid response team’ (RRT) about the required procedure for handling suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola patients. The first batch of state health care workers including staffers employed with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) have now been sensitised in management of suspected ebola patients.
Last week, the first batch comprising close to 100 health care workers was trained in Pune. According to the Directorate of Health Services (DHS), the first phase will cover Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur’s hospitals where international airports are located following which district hospitals will be taken up if a requirement is presented.
“We are also taking a decision to route flights from the countries affected with Ebola to five cities in India. In Maharashtra, all international flights carrying passengers from the affected countries will be first brought to Mumbai for reducing risk factors in more cities,” Dr Sham Nimgade, heading the Ebola cell in DHS, said.
An RRT is a team of trained health care workers for tackling hospitalised patients showing signs of clinical decline.
With Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia witnessing intense Ebola transmission along with Mali and United States of America that have reported few cases, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has outlined a series of steps that each state government has to follow to tackle the probable outbreak of the disease in India.
Apart from the health care staffers employed with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the state government will also train staffers attached with district and medical colleges. The training will include technique of wearing the protective gear, treatment protocol for Ebola patients and safety measures needed.
After much delay, through the central government, the state has recently procured a total of 400 personal protective equipment (PPE) which will now be distributed to isolation facilities and airports.
“The airport in Mumbai already has PPEs and we are waiting for the port authorities to request for PPEs. Each isolation facility in the three cities and airports in Pune and Nagpur will get PPE,” Nimgade said.
Currently, the state as well as civic-run hospitals use protective gears that are permeable enough for the Ebola virus to penetrate. The new PPEs, manufactured as per CDC guidelines, are impermeable for the virus thus ensuring full safety of the health workers.
So far, the Mumbai Port Trust has received eight passenger ships in the last one month, however, not a single patient has shown symptoms of the disease during screening, confirmed DHS.
tabassum.barnagarwala@expressindia.com
