How prepared is Ireland for the Coronavirus?
The World Health has declared the Coronavirus epidemic in China a global public health emergency. One hundred and twenty three people have died from the virus and nine thousand eight hundred and twenty have been infected.
Ben Kavanagh a teacher who lives in the city of Wuhan, where the disease was first detected last month, is being evacuated to Britain.
He is confident that he and his fellow passengers on the evacuation flight will not infect anyone upon their arrival as they will face into
A two-week quarantine.
Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer with the Department of Health, says that this level of designation allows the WHO to provide additional support to countries affected by this new disease, and help them to learn more about,
A new and evolving virus that we didn't know about one month ago.
Ireland is prepared for a public health emergency says Dr Tony Holohan. Plans are already in place, having been utilised during the SARS epidemic in 2003 and an influenza pandemic in 2009-2010.
A range of actions including good public health principles, early detection, infection prevention and control measures to stop the virus spreading are important. In addition, teams of experts regularly review all information available to them.
We continually adapt those plans, to enable us to respond.
While it is not possible to test for the virus yet, the strategy is one of containment and infection control procedures. The public also needs to be aware of this new virus.
To ensure that we have the greatest chance of detecting a suspect case.
This episode of 'Morning Ireland’ was broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on 31 January 2020. The presenter is Audrey Carville.
‘Morning Ireland’ is RTÉ's flagship news and current affairs programme, broadcast on weekday mornings from 7 am to 9 am.
