Committee to hear about ebola precautions

The health minister and the country’s chief medical officer will appear before a Dáil committee next week to outline the Government’s level of preparedness in the event of an ebola outbreak here. 

Leo Varadkar and Tony Holohan will meet with the Oireachtas health committee as the threat of the virus spreading escalates. As well as the confirmed case of ebola in a Spanish nurse, it emerged last night that a British man suspected of contracting the disease had died in Macedonia after travelling from Britain and that another British man who was with him had been put into isolation along with the staff in the hotel where they were staying.

Here, the health committee chair, Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer, said people were “naturally apprehensive” about the possible spread of the virus and that it was important “people’s fears about a potential outbreak of the virus are allayed and calmed”.