In an attempt to ensure patient preparedness and spread general awareness, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Thursday conducted a panel discussion about the newly-emerged Ebola virus.
According to doctors, Ebola has existed in African countries since 1976, but with the increased number of cases of the virus this year, the chances of it coming to India have tripled. “We have a lot of immigrants from Africa. Thus, we need to be foolproof beforehand. Most people right now don’t even know what the virus is like. Thus, we intend to spread as much information about it in whatever way we can,” said Dr Praveen Agarwal from the Centre for Community Medicine (CCM).
While the session imparted essential information about the virus, it also made the patients aware about the facilities the hospital has to curb the spread of the virus. “Since Ebola is a virus that spreads like wildfire, we want to nip it in the bud if it ever comes to India. This year we formed a
new Disease Prevention Outbreak Response Committee (DPORC) which personally looked into the various things needed to achieve this,” said Dr CS Pandav, head of CCM.
Agarwal elaborated that after the recommendations from DPORC, a separate Out Patient Department (OPD) has been set up for patients in the Emergency. Meanwhile, Minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurated the Centre for Oral Health Promotion at the Centre for Dental Education and Research on Thursday morning. The minister emphasized that the facilities for dental treatment and oral health are still inadequate in India and in the rural areas and are practically absent.
To mitigate this, the Minister said the coming years would see more investment into dental hospitals and colleges at the national and regional levels. These would be fitted out with the latest sophisticated equipment and research facilities, said Vardhan.
“Doctors on their own should act as points of dissemination of information on positive and healthy habits. While the Government will do its duty of framing policies and schemes and implementing them, it would require the cooperation and involvement of all to make ‘health for all’ a social movement,” said Vardhan.