WHO scientist infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone moved to Germany as Canadian colleagues pulled

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 27 Agustus 2014 | 22.46

A scientist who was infected with Ebola while working for the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone has arrived in Germany for treatment in a Hamburg hospital, officials said Wednesday.

Hamburg Health Department spokesman Roland Ahrendt said the man would be treated in the city's UKE hospital at the UN agency's request.

He said "Hamburg has the capabilities to carry out this kind of treatment."

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib identified the patient as a man from Senegal infected while working for the agency as a consultant.

'The international surge of health workers is extremely important and if something happens, if health workers get infected and it scares off other international health workers from coming, we will be in dire straits.'- Christy Feig, WHO

The WHO is not giving the man's name or his condition, for privacy reasons.

The World Health Organization announced it has shut down a laboratory in Sierra Leone after a Senegalese health worker was infected with the Ebola virus.

Three Canadians from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg are among the six workers who have withdrawn to Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, Christy Feig, a WHO spokeswoman in West Africa, told CBC News.

Feig said the Canadian government made the call to withdraw its workers in consultation with the WHO.

The WHO has sent in a team to see if this was a routine, straightforward infection or if structural changes need to be made to keep health-care workers safe.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said late Tuesday that it's pulling its three-person mobile laboratory team home from Sierra Leone. The Canadians helped to identify infected people and send them to a treatment tent. It is believed the three were based at Kailahun, in eastern Sierra Leone, where the Senegalese health worker was infected.

"The team is being recalled because three people in their hotel complex were diagnosed with Ebola. The risk that any of the three individuals is infected is very low," a spokesman for the agency said in an email.

"None of the team members had direct contact with any of the sick individuals, and the team members are not displaying any signs of illness."

Germany Ebola

An epidemiologist who was infected with Ebola virus while working for the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone arrives in Germany for treatment. (Axel Heimken/Associated Press)

The Canadians will stay in voluntary isolation and be monitored closely on their journey home and after they return, the agency said.

The Department of National Defence said Wednesday it has no plans to aid in the return of the three Canadian scientists.

To date, the WHO says more than 240 health-care workers have developed the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Half of the 240 have died.

The WHO had already tried to organize having another doctor sent to the Hamburg hospital for treatment in July, but the man died before he could be transported to Germany.

The WHO is not yet sure how the infectious disease expert who arrived Wednesday was exposed to the Ebola virus.

Feig said the epidemiologist was a surveillance officer, a job that typically involves co-ordinating the outbreak response by liaising with local health workers, lab experts and hospitals but not direct treatment of patients.

"He wasn't in treatment centres normally," she said by telephone from Sierra Leone. It's possible he went in there and wasn't properly covered, but that's why we've taken this unusual measure — to try to figure out what happened."

She said the team is checking to make sure there isn't an infection risk in the living and working environment that had not been uncovered.

"The international surge of health workers is extremely important and if something happens, if health workers get infected and it scares off other international health workers from coming, we will be in dire straits," she said.


Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

WHO scientist infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone moved to Germany as Canadian colleagues pulled

Dengan url

http://pentingsehat.blogspot.com/2014/08/who-scientist-infected-with-ebola-in.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

WHO scientist infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone moved to Germany as Canadian colleagues pulled

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

WHO scientist infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone moved to Germany as Canadian colleagues pulled

sebagai sumbernya

0 komentar:

Posting Komentar

techieblogger.com Techie Blogger Techie Blogger