Nunavut ramps up Ebola contingency response plan

The Ebola virus: the Centres for Disease Control colourized this image of a magnified Ebola virus. (FILE PHOTO)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — If a resident of Nunavut appears to show the signs and symptoms of Ebola in Nunavut, staff in the territory’s nursing stations and health centres should now know what to do.

The actions they are to take are contained in the Nunavut Ebola Contingency Plan, outlined Oct. 17 for Nunatsiaq News by Nunavut’s acting chief medical officer of health, Dr. Geraldine Osborne.

“We have a plan continuously in development,” Osborne said in an interview from Iqaluit.

The chance of Nunavut seeing any case of Ebola is still “extremely remote,” Osborne said.

In west Africa — where more than 4,000 people, and possibly as many as 12,000, have already died from Ebola — she called the deadly, contagious virus “out of control,” a situation that’s “entirely different” from Nunavut’s.

And, unlike southern Canada or other places like the United Kingdom or the United States, Nunavut has no direct air links to the affected regions in west Africa.

But as part of the effort to keep Ebola out of Nunavut, Osborne said the territory is in talks that could see an aircraft with a suspected case of Ebola on board diverted from Iqaluit’s airport.

Instead, the aircraft would fly on to a major southern centre better equipped to deal with receiving and dealing with an Ebola case.

If an Ebola case were suspected on board an aircraft, a difference of an hour or two in the air would be unlikely to affect the outcome, she said — for the sick person as well as for others on the aircraft.

Right now, as talks continue on in-the-air protocols, it’s up to the pilot whether or not to request an emergency landing in Iqaluit, she said.

That being said, Nunavut’s Ebola plan already includes basic on-the-ground actions to deal with an Ebola case or even several cases.

Nursing stations already have detailed information on how to recognize the signs and symptoms of Ebola, Osborne said.

They also have received what’s called “droplet protection” gear, which would include gowns, masks, gloves — and information on how to use them — which Osborne said will be gone over by two new infectious disease specialists hired by Nunavut.

The situation in Texas, where nurses became infected through an apparent breach in the use of preventive equipment, shows how important training on how to use the equipment properly to prevent the spread of the virus, she said.

Person-to-person transmission of Ebola is primarily associated with direct contact with blood and body fluids, according to information from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Any person in Nunavut suspected to have contracted Ebola would be isolated — as would an even a larger group suspected to be infected with the virus, Osborne said.

If there were 10 suspected cases, they would be isolated, stabilized and medevaced out, she said.

They would then be airlifted to another jurisdiction — Winnipeg perhaps, she suggested — which has a “rapid response” aircraft designed to deal with contagious diseases.

Confirming an Ebola diagnosis takes a blood test at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, which is the only lab certified to handle the most dangerous pathogens like Ebola.

As of Oct. 17, Nunavut’s health department provides some information about Ebola on its website, however, not yet available in Inuktitut or Inuinnaqtun.