Consider any case as Ebola: GMA directs medical staff


Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has directed medical staff across the country to consider any reported case as Ebola case until proven otherwise.

Doctors are expected from now on to wear face masks and other protective clothing as death toll of Ebola increases to 932.

Speaking on Joy News General Secretary of the GMA, Dr. Frank Serebour says measures have been put in place to educate doctors and health workers across various districts in across the country.

“We have issued a statement to every divisional chairman of the association to get to the regional Security Council and the traditional leaders and the doctors to start educating them on Ebola”.

Ebola a viral hemorrhagic fever is one of the deadliest diseases known to humans with fatality rate between 50 and 60 percent. It is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected patients.

The virus was first detected 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo but the recent outbreak has affected Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and currently Nigeria with Guinea reporting the highest number of deaths.

There is currently no known vaccine or cure for the disease but the World Health Organisation (WHO) is considering the implications of experimental drugs more widely available to patients in Africa.

Doctors and health workers in the frontline have been hardest hit during the outbreak with reported deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leon and Nigeria.

In view of this, the GMA is putting efforts in place to prevent health workers from being affected by the disease even though no case has been reported in the country.

Dr. Serebour said the health facilities should be prepared to provide workers with gloves protective gear.

Flyers have been made available to the general public to inform them about the disease and various ways in which they can protect themselves in case of an outbreak, he added.

He pleaded with patients to understand that “we are in a peculiar situation that is why we have to wear gloves and wear face masks to protect ourselves. It is not because we suspect they have Ebola”.

 
 

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