Health Ministry advises against travel to Ebola-hit countries

The Min­istry of Health has ad­vised Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als to avoid trav­el­ling to three African coun­tries af­fect­ed by an out­break of Ebo­la Bundibu­gyo virus dis­ease and warned that re­turn­ing trav­ellers from those coun­tries will face en­hanced health screen­ing and mon­i­tor­ing mea­sures.

In a trav­el ad­vi­so­ry is­sued to­day, the Min­istry said cit­i­zens should avoid all trav­el to the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of the Con­go, Ugan­da and South Su­dan be­cause of the ac­tive out­break.

The ad­vi­so­ry comes as health au­thor­i­ties move to strength­en bor­der sur­veil­lance mea­sures aimed at pro­tect­ing the pop­u­la­tion and pre­vent­ing com­pli­ca­tions re­lat­ed to quar­an­tine and repa­tri­a­tion ef­forts.

The Min­istry said the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion has de­clared the out­break a Pub­lic Health Emer­gency of In­ter­na­tion­al Con­cern.

In ad­di­tion to the three af­fect­ed coun­tries, the Min­istry urged na­tion­als trav­el­ling to oth­er parts of Africa to ex­er­cise a very high de­gree of cau­tion in An­go­la, Bu­run­di, the Cen­tral African Re­pub­lic, the Re­pub­lic of Con­go, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwan­da, Tan­za­nia and Zam­bia. The coun­tries were iden­ti­fied by the African Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion as high-risk lo­ca­tions for Ebo­la trans­mis­sion.

The Min­istry an­nounced that cit­i­zens and res­i­dents ar­riv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go af­ter vis­it­ing or tran­sit­ing through the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of the Con­go, Ugan­da or South Su­dan will un­der­go en­hanced health screen­ing on ar­rival.

Au­thor­i­ties will al­so place those trav­ellers un­der manda­to­ry 21-day ac­tive mon­i­tor­ing pro­to­cols.

The Min­istry said Port Health of­fi­cials may or­der im­me­di­ate iso­la­tion or quar­an­tine mea­sures de­pend­ing on the out­come of ini­tial health screen­ings.

Health of­fi­cials are al­so en­cour­ag­ing na­tion­als to re­view any planned trav­el to af­fect­ed re­gions and con­sid­er post­pon­ing or can­celling trips.

The Min­istry ad­vised cit­i­zens to stay in­formed by mon­i­tor­ing up­dates from the Min­istry of Health and the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

It al­so urged any­one cur­rent­ly in an af­fect­ed area, or those who have re­cent­ly re­turned, to seek im­me­di­ate med­ical at­ten­tion if they de­vel­op symp­toms in­clud­ing sud­den fever, in­tense weak­ness, mus­cle pain, headache or sore throat. In­di­vid­u­als ex­pe­ri­enc­ing symp­toms were al­so ad­vised to iso­late them­selves from oth­ers.

The Min­istry said it will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor de­vel­op­ments sur­round­ing the out­break and pro­vide up­dat­ed guid­ance as new in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able.