P.V.Anandpadmanabhan
Health Ministry is taking all possible and effective measures to tackle the Ebola scare. Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister, pointed out that India already has a highly rated integrated disease surveillance network. “We have removed all stops to constantly upgrade equipment and retrain staff and are in the process of further strengthening them,” he said.
India has put in place the same surveillance-tracking systems for checking the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) which has succeeded in Nigeria leading to the African nation being declared “Ebola-Free” by World Health Organisation on yesterday.
The Minister, today took another meeting of officials of the Health Ministry, along with representatives of the Ministries of Defence, Civil Aviation, Home, Shipping, External Affairs, some state governments, the Indian Army, Navy and National Disaster Management Authority, said all international airports and sea ports will soon be fitted out with thermal scanners and other EVD detection equipment for 24×7 deployment. Officials of the World Health Organisation and United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention were also present.
The use of thermal scanners, which has made Nigeria’s success possible, is widely prevalent in most of the 15 major airports, often two to each. A further lot of scanners will be purchased and installed over the next few days. These scanners, which resemble the radar guns used by police officers to catch speeding motorists, can detect high body temperature among people queued up before immigration counters. Fever is one of the commonest symptoms of EVD. Indian officials have already used thermal scanners when SARS broke out in south-east Asia some years back.”
