By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THE CENTRE for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that the Ukrainian patient who died in Doctors Hospital last week suffered from malaria and not the ebola virus – as was originally suspected.

Health Minister Dr Perry Gomez said at a press conference yesterday that confirmatory tests were done at the CDC in the United States to establish the presence of any other infectious diseases, including the ebola virus disease and all tests were negative.

Health professionals also confirmed that an investigation has been launched to determine who the persons were on several “voice notes” that went viral containing confidential patient information.

Dr Gomez said it was “regrettable” that during the course of the day following the victim’s death that “irresponsible rumours” circulated on social media “stating that the cause of the death was due to ebola, which has now been confirmed false”.

He also defended the response time of health care professionals in alerting the public to a possible ebola case in The Bahamas.

“Doctors do not go to the press about what is wrong with a patient. To talk about a patient you usually need a patient’s consent, it is ethics 101 in patient care. Also when you are talking about a specific patient you need to be sure of your diagnosis and so when the press said we had a case of ebola, what the press should have said is there is a suspected case of ebola because you cannot make that diagnosis in a day. It takes special tests to confirm that,” Dr Gomez said.

The Tribune did not speculate on or report the case until after Dr Gomez had made a statement in the House of Assembly on it on Wednesday night.

Dr Gomez said: “When we called the CDC they told us it will take six days but luckily we got it back in four. So, you need to be careful how you go about spreading rumours. You have to make sure you confirm the case; you cannot make a statement until you are sure what you are making. It’s a stringent protocol when it comes to diseases and we will always follow the protocol to prevent misinformation from getting out there. We cannot control social media but when we do speak we will speak with the authority of knowledge.”

When asked why the patient was brought to The Bahamas instead of taken to the US, Mr Gomez said “whether by air or by boat, once the patient is in Bahamian waters we accept them, because we have to take care of patients wherever they come from.”

CEO of Doctors Hospital, Charles Sealy, said the hospital conducted an investigation into the source of the leak, but so far no one at the hospital has been implicated.

“I had occasion to listen to the voice notes and there were many of them,” he said. “They did not identify any person in any instance. In listening to them there was no immediate information to suggest who it was from. I can speak very comfortably in saying there is a very stringent protocol in this institution and we maintain the confidentiality of our patients, to the extent that an investigation was launched in our own institution. The answer is no as to whether it was one of our persons,” he said.

“I can assure you that if that was found out to be that it was, there will be certain actions that we will take internally. But we did not get any direct information and I suspect those who are in the law, the authorities, they are investigating and actions will be taken as necessary based on their investigations and their findings.”

Responding to rumours posted on social media networks, Dr Gomez said a foreign man who was admitted to hospital in Nassau on last Sunday died from malaria.

“Late Sunday night the US Embassy in The Bahamas responded to a call to rescue a very ill person on a freighter passing through Bahamian waters. The patient was a 34-year-old white male from the Ukraine working on the freighter which was en route to New Orleans from The Congo, West Africa.”

Dr Gomez said the man was taken to Nassau and sent to the emergency room at Doctors Hospital. He was placed in a single room in isolation, he said, adding that the necessary precautions were taken by staff who attended to the patient.

“Full infection control precautions were put in place and followed by all who attended the patient.”

He said the patient was diagnosed with septic shock and treated with intravenous fluids, antibiotics and drugs to raise blood pressure. Blood work at the hospital confirmed a diagnosis of malaria, he said.

The patient died last Tuesday.