A hospital in Brampton, Ont., has instituted
heightened infection-control procedures after a patient who had recently
visited Nigeria was brought in with fever and flu-like symptoms.
Nigeria
is one of the countries affected by the largest and longest ever
recorded Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has killed at least 961
people since March, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO has
confirmed four new Ebola cases in Nigeria, which has declared a state of
emergency amid the outbreak.
The
patient has been isolated at William Osler Health System’s Brampton Civic
Hospital, which Peel Region health officials stress is purely precautionary
given the patient’s travel history.
Dr.
Eileen de Villa with Peel Public Health said the patient is showing a
fever and other flu-like symptoms but cautioned there has been no
diagnosis yet.
"I
am aware that we are currently testing a patient who recently travelled from
West Africa. Initial signs and symptoms of Ebola are similar to many more
common diseases," Ontario Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins said
in a release Friday night.
"One
such disease relevant to African travel is malaria. There are currently no
confirmed cases of Ebola in Ontario." Hoskins
said he is in close contact with the chief medical officer of health and they
are closely managing the situation.
Reassuring
Canadians
Alison
McGeer, a microbiologist and infectious disease consultant at Mount Sinai
Hospital in Toronto, said that "although it feels odd," seeing
the precautions currently being taken at Brampton Civic should reassure
Canadians.
"It’s
unlikely that we’re going to see cases of Ebola virus that come to
Canada," McGreer told CBC News. "But it’s important that we are
precautionary about it, that we have systems in place to detect people.
"And
the people those systems are going to detect are people who’ve travelled,
probably not even to high risk areas in those countries, but to those countries
and who now have malaria or influenza or one of the many other diseases that
can give you a fever."
Risks
When
two American aid workers who contracted the virus in Liberia were brought to
Atlanta for treatment, it fuelled concerns about the possibility of Ebola
arriving in North America.
But
public health officials have been reassuring Canadians that unlike viruses like
SARS or even the flu, Ebola doesn't spread easily through casual contact or the
air. One can only become infected though direct contact with infected bodily
fluids.
Even
if a case were to come to Toronto or other Canadian cities, the risk of it
spreading remains low in part due to the method by which it's passed on and
also because of Canada's preparedness, according to Jason Tetro, a
microbiologist and author of The Germ Code.
Tetro
recently wrote the blog entry "Canada, Don't Worry About
Ebola" in the Huffington Post.
"I'm
not concerned. I already know that Canada is prepared," Tetro
said. "In truth, we’ve led the world when it comes to being prepared
for these types of outbreaks," he added, referencing how public
health officials reacted to an Ebola scare in March, when a Saskatchewan
man returned from Liberia and later became ill.
Tetro
said that the country's readiness has a lot to do with the SARS
Commission in 2003, which made a number of recommendations following
the outbreak that year of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Those
recommendations included asking two key questions of travellers coming
back to Canada: "Where did you go, and what are you feeling right
now?"
Hoskins
also commented on Canada being adequately prepared Friday.
"From
the beginning of the outbreak in West Africa we have taken steps to ensure our
health system is prepared should a returning traveller be suspected of having
the disease," Hoskins said.
"With
the experience and lessons learned from the SARS epidemic, our hospitals have
sophisticated infection control systems and procedures to protect health
providers, patients and all Ontarians, and are fully equipped to deal with
any potential cases of Ebola."
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