The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has reiterated its commitment to ensuring that the deadly Ebola virus does not reach the borders of the country.
This comes amid concerns that the virus might enter into the country after about 80 people died from the disease in Guinea with reported cases in Liberia.
This pushed stakeholders in the health sector to hold a meeting last Friday to deliberate on how to prevent its spread.
Head of Disease Surveillance at the GHS, Dr Badu Sarkodie explained to Citi News what the various stakeholders agreed on at the meeting.
He disclosed that various working groups have been put in place “to access our needs and plan for pre-detection and response to the cases.”
Surveillance will also be mounted in human population settlements and in wildlife areas who are to look at what is happening at the various wildlife reserves in the country and at the various boarders.
He urged the general public to pay attention to information and education going on about the deadly virus although there is no reported case in Ghana.
Ebola virus according to the World Health Organization (WHO) outbreaks has a case fatality rate of up to 90% and it primarily occurs in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.
The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus. No specific treatment or vaccine is available for use in people or animals.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan