By James Purtill
Essential protective equipment for health workers fighting Ebola is “sitting on the tarmac” after two major airlines decided to suspend commercial flights to West Africa, an Australian doctor working in Monrovia has told the ABC.
Doctor Ian Norton is the former director of disaster preparedness at the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre in Darwin.
He is on secondment to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to manage the logistics of its humanitarian response in Liberia.
He told 1057 ABC Darwin “vast supplies” of basic equipment to be delivered to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea were stalled at major hubs.
“We’re having to launch a humanitarian mission to bring in [a] UN Hercules to deliver this stuff,” he said.
“The risk among travellers is low and yet the airlines have pulled out.
“Even some countries have stopped airlines flying 35,000 feet above them in the air space.
“It’s amazing how people deal with Ebola and fear it without any sense.”
Flights halted despite UN advice
Air France has temporarily suspended services to Sierra Leone, on the recommendation of the French government, which urged citizens to leave Sierra Leone and Liberia.
The decision left Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown and Monrovia in neighbouring Liberia with just one regular service, from Royal Air Morocco.
British Airways has also suspended flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation, the UN’s aviation safety arm, said this month the risk to passengers from becoming infected on flights was low.
Ebola transmission requires direct contact and those infected with Ebola are generally too ill to travel.
The UN’s Ebola envoy, David Nabarro, on Monday took a swipe at airlines who had cut off Ebola-hit countries by scrapping flights.
“By isolating the country, it makes it difficult for the UN to do its work,” Mr Nabarro told reporters in Freetown.
The disease has killed more than 1,400 people since it erupted in West Africa early this year.
Dr Norton said health care workers were at risk.
“[Liberia] has lost 10 doctors and over 18 nurses to the disease already,” he said.
“Early on when Ebola really wasn’t known among health care staff there was a huge spike in death in Liberia.
“They produce 10 doctors a year. They lost over that in just a number of weeks.”
WHO employs more burial teams as death toll rises
Dr Norton said the humanitarian response to the outbreak was still “behind the curve” as the number of reported cases of the disease continued to rise.
“People are finally believing the message and getting family members to come earlier to the family treatment centre,” he said.
“But the beds are not sufficient. That’s really a job for me to try and get these Ebola treatment centres up and running as fast as possible.
“It would have been great to get the green light and get this four or five weeks ago.
“We then would have been ahead of the curve. But we’re now looking at up to thousands of patients requiring treatment.
“The death toll is no doubt rising and we’re working as fast as we can to get up more hospital beds.
“We need 1,000 in the city alone at the moment.”
Dr Norton said Ebola was a devastating disease.
“If you don’t get to an Ebola treatment centre or come very late, unfortunately the mortality rate is 90 per cent,” he said.
“We do know if we can get these centres up and get ahead of the curve then the death rate will drop to the 50s or even as low as 35 per cent.”
He said the WHO will soon convert a football stadium into a huge field hospital.
“We’re tyring to convince the authorities that the best thing for that is to allow the patients into the treatment unit, but we have to build them first,” he said.
“Our job over the next few days is to get permission from government to move in with bulldozers and flatten the land. We will build huge field hospitals.”
The WHO has also had to increase the number of burial teams.
“That’ll go to about 16 burials teams,” Dr Norton said.
“These are teams of seven guys specially trained. They have full protective equipment and special vehicles to go and collect the bodies.”
The teams have begun using a Hindu incineration pyre because of a misconception buried Ebola victims could infect the water table and spread the disease.
“We had to have a lot of negotiating because of the fear of drainage of fluid into the water table. People say we don’t want Ebola patients buried anywhere near us,” Dr Norton said.
“But there’s no risk of infection.”
Hands washed with chlorine, temperature regularly checked
Dr Norton spoke to 1057 ABC Darwin 800 metres from the edge of Monrovia’s West Point slum, where the military has placed more than 70,000 residents under quarantine.
“It’s 11 o’clock at night,” he said.
“I’m standing on the verandah outside a little hotel. A curfew is in place so nobody is allowed to move on the streets after 9pm.
“About four troops went by with a flashlight making sure everyone was inside. It’s deathly quite at night, which is very unusual for a big African city like Monrovia.”
He said the daily reality of living with Ebola was a constant round of washing his hands in chlorine and having his temperature taken before meetings.
To protect yourself it is a matter of washing your hands 20 to 30 times a day.
“I stink of chlorine constantly. I must have my temperature checked 10 times a day,” Dr Norton said.
“Nobody is allowed in an office if their temperature goes up.
“If the temperature is normal then we know virus has not acted. Even if you’re infected but haven’t shown a temperature you’re not infectious.”
“No fever, no risk. I’m calling up all the logistics things I learned from the fire and rescue boys in the Northern Territory.
“We need thousands of litres of chlorinated water per site in five different locations across a very big city of 1.3 million.”
ABC/AFP