A total of 145 passengers who have arrived from Ebola-hit West African nations are being monitored across Tamil Nadu, as of Thursday.
As of now, there have been 138 passengers from Nigeria, four from Guinea, one from Liberia and two from Sierra Leone, Director of Public Health K. Kolandaisamy said. The passengers have returned to their hometowns spread out across the State and are being monitored locally.
“We do not classify the patients as high or low risk as of now, and instead monitor all patients who arrive from the four countries affected by Ebola,” Dr. Kolandaisamy said.
While the Chennai and Tiruchi airports are conducting the surveillance programme round the clock, the Madurai and Coimbatore airports are monitoring patients as and when connecting flights land from these countries. Passengers from West Asia – flying in via Dubai or Sharjah — as well as passengers who fly in via Colombo are being screened. “As of now, we have not had passengers from the Singapore-Kuala Lampur route who have come in from West Africa,” he added.
Chennai airport alone has seen 82 passengers from Ebola-hit countries pass through so far, said Dr. S Balasubramanian, joint director (epidemics), Directorate of Public Health.
Despite constant assurances by health officials on there being nothing to panic about, a few Whatsapp messages have spread rumours about the virus and home remedies to protect oneself. The 104 health helpline receives close to 50 calls every day regarding Ebola, said B. Prabhudoss, head of marketing and hospital relations, GVK EMRI, which runs the helpline. “Our officials have been trained to give correct information about the virus,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Union Health Ministry said five passengers who had arrived in the country at various airports in the past 24 hours, were found to have contact history with positive cases of the disease.
The details of these passengers were passed on to the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme for further tracking, the ministry said. However, none of the five passengers is in Tamil Nadu, said Dr. Kolandaisamy.
