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Preparation and careful adherence to
safe practices: Two crucial variables
• Participants in the technical
meeting of specialists and authorities on Ebola
toured the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical
Medicine (IPK), where the first international course
on preventing and fighting the Ebola virus will take
place
Lissy Rodríguez
Photos: Yaimí Ravelo
Conscious, safe
practice
can become synonymous with
efficiency
when facing
the risk of
one of the most serious health
emergencies of recent times – the
spreading of Ebola
to other regions
of the world.
A
tour of the field hospital
and observation area
of the IPK made evident the
preparation of Cuban
specialists, and the need
for full protection
in
compliance with security
measures for personnel
directly linked to the
treatment of Ebola.
Led by
Dr. Jorge
Pérez,
director of the institute,
and a
team of doctors and
managers, technicians and
specialists toured the
areas of low and high risk,
where arrayed are
tents for medical staff
access and those intended to
receive patients; an area
for putting on personal protective equipment;
areas for suspected cases,
convalescents and confirmed cases;
plus a meeting room
where medical personnel can
be updated on patients’ condition,
and other areas, all adequately
equipped
with both human and
material resources in place.
"Doctors
and
nurses work in
a rotating system of
two or
three hours with teams of
six. Each tent has a
name,"
Dr. Jorge
Pérez
explained, while students
and professors of the institute
conducted
a practice drill, demonstrating
how to
put on and remove protective
clothing,
the security measures to be
considered, and
requirements for handling
the bodies of those who
do not
survive.
Meanwhile, in
the observation area, there are
individual rooms
with twin beds and
the conditions necessary
for the epidemiological
care for
asymptomatic individuals
arriving from affected areas,
where they are housed for the
required 21-day observation
period.
Here
Yanet
Poveda, a nurse,
noted the
interest shown by Cuban
health personnel who today are
at the forefront
of the
fight against Ebola in
Sierra
Leone,
Guinea-Conakry
and
Liberia,
having been trained
at the institute.
In
a brief summary,
the director
of the institution noted
the history of the center, created
by Dr.
Pedro Kouri
in 1937, as well as
the most important
challenges it has faced,
since its
founding, in the protection
of the Cuban population
from infectious diseases, and
collaboration with
other nations, mainly
developing countries.
He
stressed
the role of
the institute in the
development of biomedical
sciences in general
and microbiology,
parasitology, clinical practice and
epidemiology,
and the
various diseases which have been
eradicated
in Cuba,
among which are yellow
fever, malaria, polio and
rubella. Furthermore, since
1998, the
IPK is
the
National Reference Center
for treatment
of patients with
HIV-AIDS,
he reported.
The
educational institute, providing diagnosis and
surveillance, medical attention and scientific
investigation, has graduated over 53,000
professionals between 1979 and 2013, including more
that 4,000 international students from 89 countries.
For
the treatment of Ebola, the IPK has trained
provincial and institutional teams, as well as the
medical brigades now working in affected areas,
together with the World and Pan American Health
Organizations (WHO, PAHO), provided consultation to
the Cuban Public Health Ministry and created the
center for training and the observation area.
“We
have already trained three medical brigades in
clinical, epidemiological and biosecurity aspects,
as well as nursing and the handling of patients”,
Jorge Pérez explained to Granma.
On leaving the IPK, Nicaraguan specialist in
Internal Medicine, Yester Rizo, was notably
satisfied with what he had witnessed, “This has been
a very important experience for us. We have
observed the organization of the Cuban health system
and this serves as a starting point for us to
develop a contingency plan in Nicaragua based on
what we have seen here and shared with all the other
Latin American countries.”
Nevertheless,
far from becoming complacent,
all agreed, the quality of
the preparation
of human
resources must be
subject to
improvement,
taking
into consideration the particularities
of each nation,
and serve as an
incentive
to rigorous implementation, in order to ensure
continuous improvement over time.
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