Health official cautions against false Ebola rumours
Correspondent | Tuesday September 2, 2014 12:10
Speaking during Greater Francistown District Health Management Team (GFDHMT) meeting, held here on Friday, the team’s head of investigations and surveillance, Dr Ivan Kgetse pleaded with Batswana to refrain from spreading false information about the deadly Ebola as he said it could cause unnecessary panic among the people.
“People should refrain from spreading unconfirmed rumours about Ebola in the social media like Facebook and twitter.
“Recently there were rumours that there was a case of Ebola in Zambia, which was not true. “The Zambian government was not happy at all upon hearing such misleading information,” said Dr Kgetse.
Dr Kgetse further said that such rumours posed a threat to the Zambian economy because it could affect their tourism industry. “Another case was said to be in South Africa of a man who was said to havehad travelled to West Africa but he fortunately tested negative two times. So people should confirm their facts before misleading the public,” explained Dr Kgetse.
Furthermore, he said, recently there were other rumours spreading in the social media that Ebola was reported in Gaborone. “Fortunately the Ministry of Health was quick to respond to such information before people could start panicking. “The ministry confirmed to Batswana that the information was wrong, irrelevant and misleading,” he said.
Dr Kgetse confirmed that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Ebola cases were still reported in West African countries like Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. He said the recent case of Ebola, which was reported, was on August 28 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a pregnant woman was said to have become infected after eating game meat. Dr Kgetse said the GFHMT was nonetheless ready to deal with any outbreak of the disease.
Dr Alex Kalonji who is the head of Isolation and Quarantine Sub Committee said that they were still educating the community about the deadly Ebola.
He also said GFDHMT had developed a District Strategic Plan whose main aim was to get ready to prevent and control any Ebola virus outbreak, create capacity for rapid containment of possible incidence of the outbreak and take appropriate measures after an outbreak, should there be any.
Dr Kalonji also said according to their strategic plan, maximum efforts would be made to educate the community about sources of contamination, ways to avoid infection as well as the nature and the means of transmission of the disease.
He further said that a strong monitoring system would be put in place in the two entry ports namely Matsiloje and Francistown International Airport to monitor people entering the district.
Other measures that would be put in place include actively informing and educating health workers and the community about the extent and severity of the outbreak and effectiveness of current treatment methods according to the guidelines from the Ministry of Health.
He said the free flow of information would be ensured to prevent panic spreading in the community.
He said Ntshe Clinic has been selected as the GFDHMT isolation and quarantine wing, although it was still being used for the treatment of outpatients.