Angolan health minister calls for measures to prevent Ebola

Angolan Health Minister Jose Van- Dunem has called on all health facilities in the country to create conditions and bio-security measures to respond duly to a possible case of Ebola without creating panic, the official news agency Angop reported on Friday.

The minister made the appeal on Thursday at a meeting on preparedness and response to an outbreak of Ebola with representatives of Luanda's private health facilities, Angop said.

The official stressed the country should have an epidemiological system for rapid detection of the disease, and hospitals must create a department with employees capable of informing people through a call centre and lecture people on the disease.

He said a considerable part of the country's 20 million population go for the care of traditional healers first instead of doctors, a practice which he rejected as inappropriate.

"Ebola is a very dangerous disease that needs careful attention and appropriate prevention through due technical equipment that traditional practitioners do not possess, so I urge all suspect people to rush to the nearest hospital for a check-up," he said.

The official stressed that the performance and assessment of the response depends on the system's ability to interrupt the transmission and ensure the survival of the people infected through a truly effective response that can only exist when there is a systemic approach.

He added that all sub-systems that are part of the national system must cooperate among themselves to standardise the work and interventions.

The current Ebola outbreak is one of the largest Ebola outbreaks in history. Endi