The inter-ministerial team on the Ebola viral disease (EVD) has put in place a well-prepared plan at the country�s entry points to monitor the progression of the disease.
It said the disease surveillance system in the country had been put on high alert through the intensification of viral haemorrhagic fever surveillance and a system for screening all passengers, especially those from countries that have recorded cases of Ebola.
The Minister of Health, Dr Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, who is the chairman of the team, announced this at a press briefing by the team in Accra yesterday.
The aim of the briefing was to update the public on not only the measures taken so far but also indicate further steps to ensure that Ghanaians were protected from the disease.
Other members of the team are the ministers of the Interior, Defence, Communications and Local Government and Rural Development.
The team has been tasked to intensify the fight against the spread of the deadly disease and supervise the work of an existing technical team made up of representatives from multiple state agencies.
Dr Agyeman-Mensah said field officers were on the alert to pick packages and transport specimen to the laboratories for confirmation, while port health officers had also been given orientation in the detection of cases at all points of entry.
He entreated all institutions to minimise mass gathering that would necessitate the convergence of individuals from different places in the sub-region as the country remained in this high alert phase.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Country Representative, Dr Magda Robalo, said the deadly virus was not an airborne disease, as many Ghanaians perceived it to be.
According to her, Ebola did not spread through coughing and sneezing but only by coming into contact with body fluids of persons suffering from the viral disease.
�The Ebola disease is not an airborne disease. It is a disease that takes direct contact from people to people with body fluids before it can be passed on to another person,� Dr Robalo stressed.
She, however, stressed that one sure way people could avoid contracting the disease was constantly practising good personal hygiene.
�We need to practise personal hygiene [regular hand washing] after visiting the washroom�so that we can avoid not only Ebola disease but any other disease that can be contracted through those means,� she added.
Isolation centres
The Head of the Disease Surveillance Department of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Badu Sarkodie, announced plans to establish three isolated centres in Accra, Tema and Kumasi to handle patients under surveillance.
He said the facilities had also been provided for at major health centres across the country and at the various points of entry into the country to handle persons diagnosed with the disease.
He advised caregivers at health centres to strictly adhere to directives to avoid contracting the virus, which currently has no cure.
Ebola virus disease (EVD
The EVD or Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) is the human disease caused by the Ebola virus.
Symptoms typically start between two days and three weeks after contracting the virus with a fever, throat and muscle pains and headaches.
Then there is typically nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, along with decreased functioning of the liver and kidneys. At this point, some people begin bleed.
A total of 1,200 cases, of which more than 56 per cent have died, have been recorded since the outbreak of the disease in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
As of July 23, 2013, 50 new cases were diagnosed each day, with many of them dying daily.
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