The National Department of Health insists that Rob Ferreira Hospital is ready for a possible Ebola outbreak, although the hospital cannot even perform screening tests for the virus.

 Last week Lowvelder reported that a 40-year-old Ghanaian feared that he might have contracted the virus when he visited his home country recently.

He experienced Ebola-like symptoms and went to the hospital. However, he was sent home with a letter stating that there was no screening test they could do for Ebola.

Rob Ferreira is one of 11 hospitals in the country that has been selected for the early detection and treatment of Ebola virus disease.

“The health department did not say it had screening machines, it said all the hospitals were ready for the outbreak,” national spokesman Mr Joe Maila told Lowvelder when 
the newspaper enquired about this.

“The public does not have the right to request a screening test even if they fear they could have contracted the virus. 

It is a clinical decision which the doctors make for patients. Ebola is not like HIV/Aids. The doctor will make the necessary assessment,” he explained. 

The virus was first reported in West Africa. Since then 1 848 cases and 1 013 deaths have been confirmed. Zimbabwe has reportedly placed 98 people in isolation of which 84 are from Nigeria. 

Mpumalanga has two official border gates and a number of others to Mozambique and Swaziland. Mozambique is on the list of 15 countries that are at risk of animal-to-human transmission, according to a study by the University of Oxford in England. 

The World Health Organisation has recommended that these 11 hospitals strengthen the capacity of diagnostic laboratories for Ebola and train community health workers on case management, infection prevention 
and control.