site.btaSofia's Infectious Disease Hospital Can Handle Ebola Patients, But Not Right Now

109 ECONOMY - EBOLA CRISIS - SOFIA - HOSPITALS

Sofia's Infectious Disease Hospital
Can Handle Ebola Patients,
But Not Right Now


Sofia, October 17 (BTA) - Sofia's Infectious Disease Hospital
(IDH) has a separate facility where any persons who may be
infected with the Ebola virus or may have come into contact with
Ebola patients can be held in isolation, the hospital's
director, Tatyana Chervenyakova, said on Friday.

But because of available conditions and because IDH's central
building is under repair, the first Ebola patients, if any, will
be taken to the Military Medical Academy (MMA), which has
stated that it also possesses the necessary capacity,
Chervenyakova added.

Bulgaria has experience in dealing with viral haemorrhagic
fevers, such as the Crimean fever, which is of the same class of
particularly dangerous infections as Ebola, according to
Chervenyakova and MMA's Andrei Galev. The surprising thing about
Ebola is the magnitude of the current outbreak and the fact
that it has reached Europe in one way or another. Europe should
be able to suppress the disease and prevent a possible epidemic
within its boundaries, Galev said.

He noted that MMA teams are being trained how to use special
protective outfits against Ebola, because even the best outfits
are useless if the persons wearing them do not know how to use
them. "A person informed is a person armed," Galev said,
stressing the need to raise the awareness of professionals and
the general public about fighting Ebola. LI/VE