Ebola virus: Tripura, Mizoram take preventive measures

Agartala/Aizawl, Sep 7: The Tripura and Mizoram governments have taken a number of preventive measures to check spread of deadly Ebola disease, officials from both the states said Sunday.

"The Tripura government has taken four-pronged steps to prevent contact or spread of Ebola virus," Health and Family Welfare Minister Badal Choudhury told IANS in Agartala.

"All people coming from Ebola-affected countries would be thoroughly screened and they would be quarantined for 21 days, if they have fever," he added.

Health authorities of all the eight districts were alerted and precautionary guidelines were sent to them, he said, adding that an isolation ward was set up in the state-run Gobinda Ballav Pant Medical College and Hospital in Agartala.

A medical team was formed at the hospital to check people coming from abroad.

In Mizoram, the state government has put the health department on high alert to deal with any eventuality of Ebola outbreak.

"Senior officials of health department met in Aizawl Saturday to review the preparedness to tackle the dreaded disease," Pachuau Lalmalsawma, nodal officer of integrated disease surveillance programme, told reporters in Aizawl.

No Ebola case has been reported in India so far, Lalmalsawma said.

He said the state government was yet to get any advisory from the union health ministry and the external affairs ministry in this regard.

The official said a state-level rapid response team was constituted while district-level rapid response teams, headed by chief medical officers of all the eight districts, were also formed.

Tripura shares 856 km border with Bangladesh while Mizoram shares unfenced border of 404 km with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh.

IANS