Australia has no stocks of an experimental drug used to treat the deadly Ebola virus because the chance of an outbreak in the country is unlikely, health authorities say.
Queensland Health will review the handling of a suspected Ebola case on the Gold Coast on Thursday, after a 27-year-old man complained of vague Ebola-like symptoms.
Emergency ward. Photo: Joseph Feil
The man spent most of the day in isolation at the Gold Coast University Hospital and triggered infectious disease protocols, before blood tests returned a negative result for Ebola in the evening.
“There’s no doubt that we handled it very well,” Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young said.
Health workers, wearing protective equipment, arrive with a potentially contaminated patient in Monrovia. Photo: AFP
“We’ll be reviewing what happened, we’re going through a process early next week to bring all the people involved together.”
Dr Young was adamant Australia wouldn’t be seeing an Ebola outbreak.
“I think we’re definitely prepared should someone with Ebola come into our country.”
More than 2200 people have been killed by the disease in the west African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.
But Dr Young said Australia was not in possession of any experimental drugs that have been used to treat the disease.
“I understand that they’ve used all of ZMapp, one experimental drug they did have, and they’re making more stocks of that, which should be available in around three months time,” she said.
There were also other experimental treatments available, Dr Young said.
“Australia doesn’t have any because we’ve not had any cases of Ebola, and we think it’s unlikely that we will have.”
AAP