Chennai: Director of public health, Dr K. Kolandaisamy, said they were prepared to tackle the menace of Ebola virus. For two months now, 702 people were under continuous surveillance in the state. The incubation period is 2-21 days.
“A total of 314 people have already crossed the incubation period and are not under our surveillance,” he said, adding there is no need to panic over Ebola in India as there is no direct flight connecting the six affected countries.
A health official said there are six doctors and six health inspectors at Chennai airport who quarantine suspected Ebola patients. The blood samples are sent to a lab in Pune. “The results arrive in three days,” the official said. Dr Madhu Purushothaman, senior consultant at SIMS, Vadapalani, said as Ebola is not a common disease there is no need for lab in every state and it is not “economically viable”.
Prof David Heymann CBE, chairman of Public Health, England said no virus transmitted by bodily fluids - as Ebola is - had ever mutated to airborne transmission.
