GOVERNMENT-owned housing will be used to quarantine possible Ebola victims and protective clothing for staff will be upgraded as Queensland health chiefs ramp up preparations to deal with any outbreak.
Queensland Health has activated a 24-hour emergency co-ordination centre and the state Chief Health Officer, Jeannette Young, yesterday said staff were working on worst-case scenarios and plans for how they would respond.
Dr Young ruled out taking over hotels as isolation centres as outlined in contingencies for the 2006 influenza pandemic, saying “the numbers will never be anywhere near the same” because the Ebola virus does not have airborne transmission.
But she said: “The Government owns a lot of houses so we’ve worked with other government agencies to source those houses.” She could not specify whether public housing or army homes would be used to quarantine people.
Dr Young revealed she and her colleagues nationwide held a teleconference yesterday and decided to upgrade the requirements for protective clothing to be worn by staff treating suspected Ebola patients after concerns the current equipment left skin exposed.
She said cases of Ebola in Australia were still considered “very unlikely … but we want to be absolutely prepared.”
Officials are calling for anyone planning travel to the Ebola hot spots in west Africa to notify Queensland Health before leaving, so arrangements can be made to monitor their health after they return.
The moves follow concerns from the Australian Medical Association that the nation is not adequately prepared for an outbreak.
Dr Young said the State Health Emergency Co-ordination Centre would provide around-the-clock information and advice to doctors, nurses, medical managers and other professionals.
An Incident Management Team comprising 18 experts would develop and modify guidelines according to the continuing spread or containment of the world’s worst yet outbreak of the disease.
Queensland will next week take delivery of three ISO-POD units, used to safely transport Ebola patients, as part of the improved preparations.
The specialist equipment will be based in Brisbane and deployed as necessary to fly patients to hospitals with the necessary facilities to treat cases in high-level isolation.
One ISO-POD was borrowed from the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Western Australia last week following the Ebola scare involving Cairns nurse Sue-Ellen Kovack. Queensland Health yesterday confirmed three units, costing $70,000, had been ordered from the US.
Source: Courier Mail