Dear Editor,
Officials were yesterday locked in a high-level meeting over the arrival of a man here in Jamaica who admitted to airport authorities that he travelled to Liberia in the last 10 days prompting a national chorus calling for a travel ban to be imposed on Ebola-affected countries. The question is, though, why haven't we done so already?
Seeing that Ebola is not detectable or contagious until the patient develops symptoms such as fever and vomiting, normally after 4 - 21 days, it will be very difficult for our small-island nation to effectively prevent Ebola's importation without the imposition of a travel ban on the hardest-hit countries.
Jamaica simply cannot manage to leave any room that will elevate the risk of Ebola, we must rather do all that we can to curtail such risks as we have good reasons to do so.
The most effective way to combat Ebola, outside of breaking the link of transmission, is through contact tracing, which the Center for Disease Control (CDC) describes as finding and quarantining and or monitoring everyone, for up to 21 days, who comes in direct contact with a sick Ebola patient.
Using anecdotal evidence alone, it is more than clear that we do not have the capacity to do contact tracing. How effectively and timely can we scour the country to find those who may have had contact with an Ebola patient? Do we have enough protective gear? Do we have enough isolation units? Do we have emergency response units (air/land) lined up to move in on suspected cases?
Even so, on the treatment end, can we treat an Ebola patient sans the risk of health care workers?
It is hard to shut the door on West Africa, but it is more than necessary. We are a small country already suffering with stunted growth and development, let's take the cue from our neighbouring Caribbean islands (Trinidad & Tobago, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines) who, over the last 48 hours, initiated "lockdown" measures against the Ebola threat.
Jevon Minto
mintojevon@gmail.com
Let's impose a travel ban on Ebola-affected countries now!
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Officials were yesterday locked in a high-level meeting over the arrival of a man here in Jamaica who admitted to airport authorities that he travelled to Liberia in the last 10 days prompting a national chorus calling for a travel ban to be imposed on Ebola-affected countries. The question is, though, why haven't we done so already?
Seeing that Ebola is not detectable or contagious until the patient develops symptoms such as fever and vomiting, normally after 4 - 21 days, it will be very difficult for our small-island nation to effectively prevent Ebola's importation without the imposition of a travel ban on the hardest-hit countries.
Jamaica simply cannot manage to leave any room that will elevate the risk of Ebola, we must rather do all that we can to curtail such risks as we have good reasons to do so.
The most effective way to combat Ebola, outside of breaking the link of transmission, is through contact tracing, which the Center for Disease Control (CDC) describes as finding and quarantining and or monitoring everyone, for up to 21 days, who comes in direct contact with a sick Ebola patient.
Using anecdotal evidence alone, it is more than clear that we do not have the capacity to do contact tracing. How effectively and timely can we scour the country to find those who may have had contact with an Ebola patient? Do we have enough protective gear? Do we have enough isolation units? Do we have emergency response units (air/land) lined up to move in on suspected cases?
Even so, on the treatment end, can we treat an Ebola patient sans the risk of health care workers?
It is hard to shut the door on West Africa, but it is more than necessary. We are a small country already suffering with stunted growth and development, let's take the cue from our neighbouring Caribbean islands (Trinidad & Tobago, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines) who, over the last 48 hours, initiated "lockdown" measures against the Ebola threat.
Jevon Minto
mintojevon@gmail.com
Let's impose a travel ban on Ebola-affected countries now!
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