The World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency over the Ebola outbreak and urged member states to strengthen preparedness and response measures in line with a set of guidelines.
Despite Bangladesh’s links with African countries through labour migration and peacekeeping missions, exposing the country to potential risks, the government has yet to take pragmatic measures, including surveillance, quarantine, laboratory preparedness and patient management, to tackle the disease.
Bangladesh does not have a Biosafety Level-4 laboratory, the standard recommended for testing the Ebola virus, while ports of entry are not conducting screening of passengers with travel history to Ebola-affected countries.
On May 17, the WHO warned member states to strengthen preparedness and activate surveillance against the disease after declaring it a public health emergency.
Seven days after the WHO announcement, disease control director of the Directorate General of Health Services Professor Dr Md Halimur Rashid said on Sunday that authorities were preparing instructions in line with the WHO guidance for circulation at ports.
Director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research Professor Tahmina Shirin told New Age that it was the lone government agency dedicated to testing such diseases, but currently the institute did not have a BSL-4 laboratory.
The institute’s laboratory is only a Biosafety Level-2 facility, according to its officials.
‘We are exposed to risk because the laboratory facilities and safety standards are not up to the mark,’ said an official on condition of anonymity.
Tahmina, however, said that polymerase chain reaction testing for Ebola was technically possible.
‘We will do PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). It is possible. We conducted Ebola PCR tests on suspected cases with epidemiological links during the 2014–2015 outbreak. We use a lysis buffer that destroys the virus before PCR. It is standard,’ she explained.
However, officials said that a more alarming concern was that no Ebola testing reagents were currently available in Bangladesh and no hospital was fully prepared to manage a patient if a suspected case was identified.
Tahmina said that the IEDCR had requested the WHO to provide Ebola testing reagents.
‘Ebola reagent is not available. So we need support for that. WHO country office is trying,’ Tahmina wrote to New Age in response to text questions on Saturday.
This is the third time the WHO has declared an Ebola-related public health emergency, following similar declarations in 2019 and 2014.
Former IEDCR adviser Mohammad Mushtuq Husain said that it was unacceptable that Bangladesh had yet to establish a BSL-4 laboratory.
He said that Bangladesh had previously received Ebola testing reagents from the WHO and prepared a national guideline.
‘We need to update the guideline by incorporating new issues,’ he said.
Bangladesh has designated the Infectious Disease Hospital and Kurmitola Multicare Specialised Hospital, formerly Kurmitola General Hospital, for infectious disease management.
Officials at the two hospitals, however, said that they were not yet prepared to manage an Ebola patient if one arrived.
DGHS communicable disease control senior adviser for International Health Regulations Dr Md Nasir Ahmed Khan said that Ebola had a fatality rate of around 50 per cent, making it one of the deadliest diseases in the world, although it was not airborne.
‘Ebola spreads through close contact. So we must ensure that suspected people do not come into close contact with others,’ he said.
He said that no Ebola patient had been identified in Bangladesh so far, but warned that the country remained at risk.
At present, the Democratic Republic of The Congo and Uganda are the primary outbreak zones. Health authorities have also identified 10 additional African countries as high risk ones—Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.
Nasir Ahmed urged both the public and government agencies to strictly follow WHO guidelines to avoid any emergency situation.
The WHO on May 17 declared the Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern.
Officials at ports, including Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, said that no screening or travel history collection was being conducted till now.
‘We were not given any instruction,’ an official at the airport said.
Ebola symptoms typically appear suddenly between two and 21 days after exposure with the illness often beginning to show with flu-like symptoms and may rapidly progress to severe complications, including bleeding and organ failure.
Patients may experience weakness, body aches, fever with chills, headache and runny nose.
