Ebola caution

BARBADOS’ TOURISM-BASED ECONOMY, already struggling with little or no growth for six straight years, could be devastated by even one case of Ebola.

And a high-level disaster risk management consultant has told the MIDWEEK NATION that given the global paranoia and fear about the deadly virus disease now killing thousands in West Africa and spreading, an all-out effort has to be made to keep the illness out of the island.

Clive Lorde, who has spent most of his professional life preparing for and battling man-made and natural disasters throughout the Caribbean, is convinced that infectious diseases need to be added to the list that regional governments had to put on their national preparedness plans.

A former head of the defunct Central Emergency Relief Organisation, Lorde said fear of Ebola was now “an issue of possible economic catastrophe”.

Please read the full story in today’s MIDWEEK NATION, or in the eNATION edition.