UHNBC to handle Ebola

The University Hospital of Northern BC is one of five in the province tasked with handling patients at risk of having the Ebola virus.

The Ministry of Health says that UHNBC staff will be trained specifically on how to respond to cases of Ebola.

Despite this, Chief Medical Officer with Northern Health Sandra Allison says there is no need for panic.

She says the spread of the virus in a modern healthcare system like Northern Health may not be as ruthless as its been in West Africa.

“You can imagine, the transmission patterns that happen in those countries are far more pronounced than you would see in a country [like Canada] where we have very strict infection control measures,” she says.

So far in Africa the outbreak has killed around 4500 people, and one person in Texas travelling from Africa died from the disease.