Ebola virus disease- Chennai airport warned
Posted on: 07/Aug/2014 9:59:05 AM
The Ebola virus disease, also known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is a disease with a mortality rate of up to 90%, and has no specific treatment. It spreads by direct contact of body fluids.
The disease has an incubation period of between 13 and 25 days, after which patients develop symptoms including nausea, vomiting, fever, muscle pain, sore throat, fatigue, seizures and sometimes coma. Experts say it is difficult to diagnose and can be confused with many other diseases with the same symptoms.
In view of the above virus, Chennai airport staff will screen flyers from African countries after authorities put airports on alert over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa spreading to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria. Freetown on Thursday declared a health emergency in Sierra Leone.
The Union government and the airport health organisation have directed airports to take steps to prevent spread of the disease from international travellers. Though there are no direct flights from the worst affected countries to Chennai or other Indian cities, there are flights from them to the Gulf from where passengers from the US, UK and Europe board connecting flights to Chennai. A large number of Nigerians also visit India.
