Distributed by e-mail October 21, 2014
This update is focused on Ebola.
Spread around the world:
Yesterday, Nigeria was declared Ebola-free after 42 days without a new case. This follows Senegal being declared E-free on Friday. These countries used their stronger infrastructure to implement aggressive public health measures, including isolation of cases and contact tracing, and were able to end their outbreaks relatively quickly. A nice summary is available here:
Risk in Middlesex-London:
At this point, Canada remains Ebola-free, thus the risk of Ebola remains very low in Middlesex-London for the general public. The risk is greater for the health care workers in the acute care setting (e.g. emergency rooms) and first responders (e.g. EMS), as they would be most likely to treat an index case if Ebola comes to Canada.
Preparations in the Health Care Setting:
Considering the limited resources in smaller hospitals, the Ministry of Health designated 10 hospitals in Ontario as regional centres. LHSC was designated as a regional hospital for all of Southwestern Ontario and all suspect and confirmed cases of Ebola from this region will be directed to LHSC. The process for this transfer has yet to be fully elucidated, and the Health Unit is gathering with interested stakeholders to clarify this latter in the week.
Preparedness in the Primary Care Setting:
The current guidance from the Province is that routing screening for Ebola is not recommended in primary care settings such as family practice and public health clinics. However, new directives are expected from the CMOH in the next few weeks, and if cases of Ebola arrive in Ontario, this may change.
The Public Health Ontario website remains the best place in the province to look for guidance documents: www.publichealthontario.ca/ebola
We may see cases of Ebola in Middlesex-London. If we do, we will contain them.