The possibility of an Ebola case in the ACT is low but likely enough that Canberra Hospital and health authorities have begun working on contingency plans to prepare.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The ACT's preparedness for an Ebola case was discussed at a roundtable meeting at Canberra Hospital on Thursday, where it was revealed how the hospital would respond if presented with a suspected case.
ACT Health acting chief health officer Dr Andrew Pengilley said there was a low but real possibility the virus may reach Australia.
"It's something that's likely enough that we have to prepare for it," he said.
"If you're talking about the ACT, the chance of a case coming here is pretty low but it's not impossible."
Thursday's meeting revealed how the hospital would cope if a patient, who had recently returned from three weeks in Guinea, presented with symptoms such as fever, muscle pain and appetite loss.
Canberra Hospital emergency department clinical director Michael Hall said based on the scenario, the patient had a low, but potential, risk of Ebola exposure.
"The triage nurse would aim to minimise contact so would take that briefest bit of history and as soon as they identify him as a risk, their priority is to safely move him into an isolation room," he said.
"The likely response is they would immediately apply a mask to the patient, to themselves and walk him down to our isolation room.
"The next step is to trigger a communication cascade, getting senior doctors and senior nurses and our public health and infectious diseases mechanisms involved for the fairly complex next steps."
Dr Hall said once the patient had been moved to isolation, a decision would be made about immediate care.
"The patient ... requires a careful risk assessment so we would be looking atwhat staff we need in terms of doctors and nurses, what protective equipment they're wearing and what information we can get from the patient, perhaps before staff see him so we can plan our response in as safe a way as possible," he said.
Dr Pengilley believed the hospital was well-prepared in the event of an Ebola case.
The latest Ebola epidemic is the worst outbreak of the deadly disease on record and has killed more than 4000 people, mostly in the west African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
There have been several cases of infection among Western aid workers, medics and missionaries.
Dr Pengilley said Ebola was spreadthrough contact with bodily fluids.
"The risk to people is either living with people in the same household as someone who is extremely unwell or people treating people who are very unwell," he said.
"It's very important that we have procedures in place to minimise the risk to staff treating these patients but there really isn't any likelihood of a person with Ebola causing an outbreak in the community.
"Where that has happened in Africa, it has been because of the difficulty of doing infection control in hospitals but also the fact that people have remained at home until very unwell and have often been nursed in crowded conditions by family members and also differences in the way bodies are handled after death."
