16 Mar 2015

The Minister of Labour of Home Affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu, says following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Ministry of Health reactivated its national multi-sectoral epidemic preparedness response committee and developed a comprehensive Ebola epidemic preparedness and response plan.

Answering a question in Parliament, on behalf of the Minister of Health, he said four technical working groups were established to facilitate implementation of the plan at the national and district level.

He said at the district level, all district health management teams (DHMT’s), including South East, established or reactivated their rapid response teams.

Furthermore, he said taking into consideration the rapid spread of the disease and the absence of personnel trained in Ebola, priority was given to training frontline staff that would be directly involved with potential cases.

He said these include nurses, doctors, counsellors, general duty assistants, immigration and police officer and district health management team drivers.

Mr Batshu said depending on the cadre being trained, training was on Ebola epidemiology, infection control, case identification and management, personal protective equipment, their use and disposal as well as safe human waste disposal.

He said the Ministry of Health has distributed personal protective clothing to all DHMT’s, and that they in turn distributed them accordingly within their district.

“South East DHMT received 50 personal protective clothing which have been distributed, four were sent to the border, and the South East District has identified a building that would be used to isolate an Ebola suspect.

Ramotswa MP, Mr Samuel Rantuana had asked the minister to apprise the house on the alertness of staff at the Ramotswa Border Post with regard to the threat of the Ebola disease and whether there were any people trained to attend to such cases.  He also wanted him to state whether they have protective clothing and any isolation facility of building has been identified for use if need be. ENDS