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Auxilia Katongomara Chronicle Reporter
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care says the Zambian trucker who was admitted to the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) with Ebola-like symptoms on Tuesday was suffering from typhoid, allaying fears that the deadly virus had finally reached the country.

Panic gripped Bulawayo after the truck driver was admitted to the institution and immediately put in isolation.

The patient (name and company withheld) was diagnosed with heavy typhoid and bronchitis and has since been discharged from the institution.

Director of Epidemiology in the Ministry of   Health and Child Care Dr Portia Manangazira assured the nation that there was no need for panic as medical tests had proved the driver was not suffering from Ebola.

“I can confirm that there was a patient who was taken to United Bulawayo Hospitals on Tuesday but the case turned out to be negative, it was not Ebola,” said Dr Manangazira.

She commended the UBH staff for being on high alert and treating the case with great caution.

“This shows that our surveillance systems are working and in the event that it was Ebola, it could have been detected earlier due to their swiftness  as they immediately put the patient in isolation pending tests.

“After receiving the patient, they immediately informed our head office and that is very commendable, they treated the case with urgency and this reduces spreading of diseases,” said Dr Manangazira.

She said after the patient had been admitted, the health workers at UBH immediately contacted Thorngrove Isolation Hospital where protective gear was sourced for the medical authorities attending to the patient.

Sources said the driver, who was in transit from South Africa to Zambia, was brought into the institution bleeding from the nose, shivering, sneezing continuously and vomiting blood.

Dr Manangazira, who sounded confident of the country’s surveillance systems, urged all health workers to treat such cases as “worse case scenarios” to avoid contracting the disease.

Last week, the government set up health ports to strictly monitor visitors coming in via air or land routes and quarantine them if necessary in a bid to curb a possible Ebola outbreak in the country.

With the health port in place, travellers are required to pass through it for assessment before their passports are stamped. The visitor’s passport is also inspected to see whether the holder had recently been to an Ebola affected country.

On Wednesday, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said government had set up a national Ebola viral disease taskforce that is expected to evaluate the risk of an Ebola outbreak and advise the government on appropriate measures to mitigate the impact in the event of an outbreak.

He said the goal of the inter-ministerial taskforce comprising the Ministries of Health and Child Care, Transport and Infrastructural Development, Home Affairs and Tourism and Hospitality Industry, was to support global efforts to contain the spread of the disease and provide a coordinated national and international response for the travel and tourism sector.

The Ebola virus causes internal and external bleeding and damages the immune system and organs.

It may be contracted through contact with blood or bodily fluids of the infected.

In the worst outbreak of the haemorrhagic Ebola fever on record, the disease has killed 1,426 of the 2,615 people who have contracted the virus in West Africa, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. It has also been detected in countries like the DRC, Nigeria and Senegal.
About 90 percent of people who contract Ebola are killed by the disease.