No reason for Ebola scare, doctors say

The vice-chancellor of Bangladesh’s lone medical university says there is no need to press the panic button about the deadly Ebola viral disease because it still remained “a distant possibility” to appear here.

The virus had remained confined to West African region so far and killed up to 90 percent of its victims in some places.

Travel restrictions on Ebola patients issued by the World Health Organisation, and no direct air links with the affected countries have made it difficult for the virus to find its way to Bangladesh, the national disease monitoring agency, IEDCR, said.

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Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) on Monday organised a scientific seminar on the virus to sensitizs its doctors about the disease.

Vice-chancellor Prof Pran Gopal Datta said people became panicked when a new disease emerged anywhere.

“We found a patient suffering from fever and cold and she assumed it was Ebola,” Prof Datta said.

Ebola patients show up with fever, vomiting and diarrhoea, symptoms that received wide publicity in Bangladesh after WHO declared the disease “international public health concern”.

But, the chief scientific officer at IEDCR Dr M Mushtuq Husain said there was no chance of getting Ebola if someone did not come into direct contact with an Ebola-infected person.

“Bangladesh is Ebola-free so far,” he said at the seminar.

He said Bangladesh had taken preparations to prevent the disease.

The government has taken steps to screen out patients who come from West African countries, he said.

The health department has kept a ward at the Kurmitola General Hospital, which is near Shahjalal International Airport, ready for the “isolation” of an Ebola suspect.

Dr Husain said they would train doctors of that hospital on Tuesday.