The longer the Ebola outbreak rages in West Africa, the greater chance a traveler infected with the virus touches down in an Asian city.
How quickly any case is detected — and the measures taken once it is — will determine whether the virus takes hold in a region where billions live in poverty and public health systems are often very weak. Governments are ramping up response plans, stepping up surveillance at airports and considering quarantine measures. Still, health experts in the region’s less developed countries fear any outbreak would be deadly and hard to contain.
“This is a non-treatable disease with a very high mortality rate. And even a country like the United States has not been able to completely prevent it,” said Yatin Mehta, a critical care specialist at the Medanta Medicity hospital near New Delhi. “The government is trying. They are preparing and they are training, but our record of disaster management has been very poor in the past.”
More than 10,000 people have been infected with Ebola and nearly half of them have died, according to the World Health Organization. The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the largest ever outbreak of the disease with a rapidly rising death toll in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. There have also been cases in three other West African countries, Spain and the United States.
Early symptoms of Ebola include fever, headache, body aches, cough, stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea, and patients aren’t contagious until those begin. The virus requires close contact with body fluids to spread so health care workers and family members caring for loved ones are most at risk.
Asia, home to 60% of the world’s population, scores higher than West Africa on most development indexes and includes emerging or developed countries like Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. But countries like India, China, the Philippines and Indonesia have vast numbers of poor, many of whom live in crowded slums, and underfunded health systems. The Philippine government estimates there are up to 1,700 Filipino workers in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, plus more than 100 peacekeeping troops in Liberia. The Department of Health is suggesting a 21-day quarantine period before its citizens leave those three countries, but doesn’t know how it will pay for that, said spokesman Lyndon Lee Suy.
“The DOH is doing its part, but it is downstream, it is on the receiving end,” said Dr. Antony Leachon, president of the Philippine College of Physicians. “What is important is that Ebola shouldn’t be able to enter. Since we have 10 million migrant workers, we have problems containing that.”
Indonesia has put 100 hospitals that have experience of treating patients suffering from bird flu on standby for Ebola, said Tjandra Yoga Aditama, head of the Health Ministry’s research and development board.
The only way of ensuring that the virus doesn’t spread into a country is enforced quarantine for people coming from countries with an outbreak or — even more effective — a total travel ban. But those measures would mean that doctors and other experts trying to beat the virus at its source in West Africa would be less willing or unable to help, making the outbreak worse.
Airports in Asia have stepped up their defenses: screening passengers who have travelled from affected countries, taking any with high temperature for observation and trying to keep contact them with for 21 days — the incubation period. Even assuming these measures are carried out effectively, people can and do lie about their travel history, and common drugs like Paracetamol are effective in reducing fever.
Authorities in China say 8,672 people have entered southern Guangdong province from Ebola-ridden areas since Aug 23.
“Asia is very diverse in its capacity, and there are some countries with people that travel a lot that may not have the best infrastructure and are at greater risk,” said Fisher, who has twice been to Liberia to assist in the WHO’s response.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
