Halifax has Ebola-prepardeness talks with rapid-reponse team
Posted Oct 21, 2014 06:06:23 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Nova Scotia’s chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, said the only reason an Ebola rapid-response team was in Halifax on the weekend is because they had to fly somewhere.
“They just needed somewhere to fly to, and we said ‘yes, we’d be happy to have them fly to Halifax,'” he said.
The team stayed overnight and met with health officials to discuss what role they would play in the event Halifax did have a case of the virus.
Halifax has joined efforts by the federal government to ensure Canada is prepared for potential cases of the virus, and the team held exercises in our city to test its ability.
Strang told News 95.7 having the drills take place in Halifax gave them the opportunity to meet with the team.
“You get a greater understanding of what the scale sets of people on the team may be and what complementary and supportive role they could play, along with Nova Scotia, in the event that we did get an Ebola case,” he said.
Strang said he and his colleagues from other provinces have been having weekly conference calls about Ebola since August, and are keeping themselves abreast on how the virus is evolving in other parts of the world.
“Part of the role of the public health agency would be to support smaller jurisdictions,” he said. “We have less capacity to deal with something like this on our own, than a large province like B.C. or Ontario or Quebec.”
