Ebola: Health of 89 soldiers to be tracked

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Ebola soldiers return to North Yorkshire base

100 soldiers from 35 Squadron, 5 Medical Regiment, based at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire have returned from a seven-week tour in Sierra Leone as part of the British Army's support of the response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The unit was deployed to Sierra Leone to man the Ebola Training Academy. The Academy's role is to train the Sierra Leone health care workers who are working in the five Ebola Treatment Units the UK is currently building.

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Ebola: Health of 89 soldiers to be tracked

PUNE: As many as 89 soldiers from Maharashtra, who were deployed as United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force in Ebola-affected countries, have been put on high alert after their return to the state.

The Union health ministry has expressed concern that these soldiers, who were deployed mainly in Liberia, Sudan and Congo, are at a higher risk of catching Ebola as they were in constant and direct contact with the locals there.

The ministry has directed all the states to take preventive measures and also step up surveillance while monitoring the health status of these soldiers for at least a month.

"We have sent a list of 89 soldiers with their names and addresses to all the district civil surgeons in Maharashtra. They have been asked to monitor health status of these soldiers in their jurisdiction for any symptoms. Of the 89 soldiers who returned from the Ebola-affected countries, 12 are from Satara, Solapur and Pune districts," said H H Chavan, deputy director of the state health department.

"The soldiers will be regularly visited by the respective health staff to take a daily feedback on their health condition. We are monitoring them as a precautionary measure. If any of them shows symptoms akin to Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), they will be safely moved to the designated isolation wards. Their blood samples will be sent to the Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV) to rule out the infection," said another state health official.

The contagious disease, which has no known cure, has symptoms that include sudden fever, muscle pain and vomiting, followed by external and internal bleeding that leads to death.

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