By AVA TURNQUEST
Tribune Chief Reporter
aturnquest@tribunemedia.net
PRIME Minister Perry Christie yesterday warned shipowners of the “deleterious” effect a report or confirmed case of the Ebola virus would have on the country’s economy.
Mr Christie underscored the importance of strict adherence to national protocols given the country’s transshipment linkages between the west coast of Africa and Grand Bahama.
He restated the Ebola Task Force’s commitment to ensuring prompt and effective response to real or suspected cases during his welcome remarks at the annual general meeting of the Bahamas Shipowners Association.
“We are acutely aware that the security of our nation is threatened by the Ebola virus disease,” he said. “The Bahamas is a nation that has that shipping coming in from the west coast of Africa into Grand Bahama. It is so necessary to have this open dialogue and wonderful working relationship with partners that exist in our country and who have responded magnificently.”
Mr Christie said: “We know that any report or incidence of this virus can have a deleterious affect on our economic lifelines; for this reason the government of the Bahamas has established an Ebola Task Force. The primary concern of this task force is to be able to respond at a moment’s notice to any real or suspected cases of Ebola virus from a public health and medical standpoint and to put in place all of the necessary protections that a country ought to have aligned with this.”
Mr Christie said that the technical alert issued by the Bahamas Maritime Authority should be adopted as a “matter of emergency” on all Bahamian ships in a bid to collectively reduce the risk of exposure to crews and citizens.
“We have put in place protocols that will ensure port and airport safety and notification protocols for ships at sea,” he said, “whether travelling to Bahamian ports or sailing through the Bahamas. It is certain that these protocols and these standard operating procedures will be made available to you in the interest of public safety and to protect the shipping industry.”
Ebola is a deadly virus that is acquired by contact with blood or body fluids of an infected human or animal. Since March, the disease has spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal in west Africa. However, last week, Nigeria was declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organisation after a 42-day period with no new cases.
The disease has also been documented in the United States, according to the US Centres for Disease Control.
Thomas Duncan, after entering the US from Liberia, died in Dallas, Texas, from the disease. Two nurses who cared for Mr Duncan, have subsequently tested positive for the virus.
Last week, a medical aid worker who had returned to New York from Guinea, Dr Craig Spencer, was diagnosed with the disease.
Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and St Lucia announced earlier this month immediate travel bans on anyone that would have come from or through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, where nearly 4,500 people have died from the virus.
Comments
SP 10 years, 1 month ago
STFU PGC and simply impose a travel band from infected countries until the dam disease is under control.
WTF is wrong with this clown? There are a total of 18 synonyms for "deleterious" used by everyone else on the planet and this idiot has to use the one word that NOBODY else uses?
For the love of GOD man, stop using words that only a librarian "might" have heard somewhere once in a lifetime. It makes you look even more out of touch with humanity.
I'd hate to be in a life threatening situation and have to depend on this big bozo to warn me of impending doom!
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 1 month ago
Funny, someone told me years ago of a speech given by PGC to a group of government employees. When the person saw one of their colleagues get up to leave the audience, they asked him where he was going. He answered "I going to get a dictionary". a TRUE STORY.
realfreethinker 10 years, 1 month ago
lol
concernedcitizen 10 years, 1 month ago
Good one SP
TalRussell 10 years, 1 month ago
PM do you even drive by those shanty Towns?
ChaosObserver 10 years, 1 month ago
Is this fool serious? Apparently he has not looked into crime, corruption, human/drug trafficking, lack of jobs, oil spills, BEC, etc etc.....what a buffoon.
GrassRoot 10 years, 1 month ago
The Security of the Nation is threatened by our own criminals.
GrassRoot 10 years, 1 month ago
Since the U.S. has Ebola case we should prohibit travel from the U.S. to the Bahamas or at least install a 21 days' quarantine program for travelers coming from the U.S.
John 10 years, 1 month ago
The USA has ownership (a patent) of the Ebola virus and all its variant strains, research on the virus any drugs or vaccines developed to combat it. They introduced Ebola to the US to test the vaccines against the virus, the medicines to fight Ebola, and the ability to spread or contain the virus. Thus far we know the vaccine does not work on Africans and Ebola may or may not be an airborne virus, depending on the strain. The virus can also remain active in the sperm up to three months of a person who has been "cured" of the disease. UNLIKE Aids a person who does not recieve treatment for the disease will experience a most horrifying and painful death within a matter of days (around 16) and persons who cared for the victim and came in contact with body fluids are more than likely to contract the disease. What then is the intention of the US when they have perfected EBOLA?
SP 10 years, 1 month ago
John.....You missed the fact that an individual will also experience all the tell tale Ebola symptoms immediately if forced to listen to Perry Gladstone Christie spew horse-shyt for 5 minutes.
John 10 years, 1 month ago
There is a drug that Nigeria started to experiment with that is claimed to combat the virus but the drug (silver something) is also a pesticide. So with the ethnic makeup of our country and no apparent cure for Ebola, our fate is not in our hands.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 1 month ago
Obviously the drug doesn't work. It seems like successful outcomes are based on early detection and aggressive fluid management. There are black survivors in Africa. In fact the first white person brought to the US with Ebola, Dr Kent Brantley, was treated with the blood of a black child. Stop the fear mongering
The government still has non fear monte ring issues to address like the state of A&E and hazardous material cleanup in the community
John 10 years, 1 month ago
Fear Mongering? would you agree that qutie a large percentage of the Bahamian population have not even heard of Ebola.. Population density also plays a part in transmission, That's why a number of countries have cancelled large crowd vents for next year. While there may be black survivors in Africa, the mortality rate has increased from 55% to 70%, meaning the disease has become more deadly
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 1 month ago
Yes fear-mongering, you constantly insinuate that the disease is being spread as some sinister plot to get rid of the black man. Meanwhile real scientists are trying to trace the virus' origin and believe it to have passed to humans through the consumption of forest animals, possibly bats
Whether Bahamians have heard about Ebola is a different matter from whether a sinister plot is afoot. I've said multiple times the government needs to up their information campaign in English and Creole, specifically targeting shantytown residents. They need to fix A&E and they need to confirm procedures for cleaning up contaminated homes.
John 10 years, 1 month ago
Obviously you have the one trying to mislead. I said it is strange that they have a cure for Ebola in white folks that does not work on black people. You said that it was because the fluids used to make the serum was taken from a white man. Now you say the serum used to cure the Dr, was taken from a black African boy. I said it is strange that Africans (black) have been battling with Ebola for 17 years and there is no cure for them but the white patients get cured. You deduced from that that said it was an attempt to wipe out the black race. The fact is that even if a white person gets the virus and is denied treatment they too will die. I indicated that doctors who are working in West Africa are saying the disease has become more deadly in the past 7 months and the mortality rate has increased from 55% to 74%. Unlike what you posted about early treatment and controlling body fluids, their information is that the two man factors in surviving the (new strain) of the disease is age (74 % of patients under 21 survive compared to 54% of those over 45) and that the virus has change from attacking the blood to an intestinal one (where diarreah is the major concern). Most people fid it unusual that the US has a patent to the virus since 2007, and like me are wondering what their intentions are. So yes I am concerned if the treatment and/or development of a cure tends to be partial. That is far from fear mongering. Shanty towns exist because of poverty. So you can eliminate the shanty towns by doing something about poverty. If you eliminate them by simply destroying them as is currently being done the problem of homeless poor will manifest itself. Some US cities are passing law to jail homeless people. And all are not black.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 1 month ago
My flub, I should have referenced "blood type" as opposed to skin colour. Since blood types occur in different percentages among races it's not far fetched that his blood type matched the white victims but not the black victim.what is the age distribution of the recent African victims? I don't know, do you? They know now that younger people fight the virus better than older people Maybe the increase is due to more older victims? Can you cross that out? You consistently give two or three facts on topics and then go off on some twilight zone hypothesis.
It's a simple fact that the patients in the US have survived because they were 1. Diagnosed early and 2. They have the life support systems in the US that are simply not available in poor communities in Africa.
Emac 10 years, 1 month ago
Whether he admits it or not, John always carry some conspiracy theory with his facts finding. Too much Revelation perhaps, John?
John 10 years, 1 month ago
twilight zone hypothesis? So only you , the self proclaimed Ebola expert, are allowed to draw conclusions from what you read. By trying to discredit or contradict what I said you are pointing to two clear and undisputable facts: (1) The contraction rate among non Africans is much lower than among Africans as there are only 5 known cases during the recent reports. And the survival rate among non-Africans is much higher 100 percent in the USA. Did the patient in Spain die or did he survive? The major mode of attack has changed from a blood attack to one in the intestines that causes severe diarreah. The survival rate difference between older and younger patients of infections but has nothing to do with the number of infections but with the strength of the body's immune system., according to what I read. And strangely enough the station that was compiling this data in New Guinea has been destroyed by fire. They claim it was contaminated with Ebola and, according to the report, most of the data was destroyed. (no comment).
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