The Medical Health and Family Welfare department which is on alert mode on the dreaded disease Ebola has selected Doon Hospital and Base Hospital Haldwani as nodal centres for the disease.
The department sprang into action by detection of 15 people in the state who arrived from the West African countries affected by the Ebola. Though none of these people were found to carry the disease the health department sounded an alert for the disease.
The state programe officer communicable diseases, Dr Kiran Bisht told The Pioneer that Dr TS Takuli would be the in charge of the nodal centre in Haldwani while Dr Praveen Panwar would head the centre at Doon Hospital. These doctors were recently sent by the department to attend a national training programe on the disease.
Dr Bisht informed that an isolation ward as per the norms would be set up in these hospitals and the staff like nurses, wards boys, pharmacists and ambulance drivers would be trained to deal with the cases of this disease. The department would provide Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) kits to these nodal centres. Each PEP kit contains medicines, protective clothing, guidelines for the practitioner and advice for the patients. These kits are meant to prevent infection arising out of an exposure to the diseases like Ebola.
Ebloa is a highly contagious and could pose a serious challenge to the health services of the country if the virus makes it way in the country. The West African counties of Guinea, Sierra leone and liberia are primarily affected by the Ebola virus. The symptoms of Ebola are consistent fever, sore throat, muscular pain, headache followed by vomiting and diarrhea. The patient suffers from decreased functioning of lever and kidneys and internal and external bleeding which proves fatal. The disease is transmitted by the exposure with the body fluids of the person who in infected with the disease.