Greek hospital on standby for Ebola outbreak
One public hospital, the Amalia Fleming in northern Athens, has been put on standby to deal with an Ebola outbreak in Greece while medical specialists have been dispatched to the country’s main entry points in a bid to contain possible arrival of the deadly disease, authorities said Friday.
No plans for screening travelers for the deadly virus were announced Friday following a meeting between Health Ministry officials with experts from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KEELPNO) and the National Health Operations Center (EKEPY).
However, it was decided that visitors traveling from high-risk countries would be asked to fill in a questionnaire aimed at helping authorities filter out high-risk cases.
“There is no reason to be particularly worried about Ebola in Greece if we are well prepared,” the Health Ministry’s general secretary Christina Papanikolaou told Skai ahead of Friday’s meeting.
Posters have already been placed in Greek airports providing information, in Greek as well as in English, about the Ebola virus.
KEELPNO has issued a warning against travel in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
The disease, which has no proven cure, has killed nearly 4,000 people in West Africa, more than half of them in Liberia. It has also reached the United States, Spain and, possibly, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Authorities in Skopje were Friday investigating after a 56-year-old Briton died of “Ebola-like symptoms” in the country’s capital on Thursday.
