The risk of someone in London having Ebola is small right now, but a massive planning effort is underway at the city's hospitals should a case arise.
Dr. Robin Walker, head of pandemic planning and vice president at London Health Sciences Centre, says precautions are being taken in the event the hospital sees a patient suspected of having Ebola.
"The plan is huge...[it] consists of making sure that any suspected patient is tracked immediately into the isolation facility, that as soon as someone is identified as even a possible Ebola case that everyone who comes into contact with that person is wearing full protective gear."
Although LHSC has not seen a suspected Ebola case, Walker says the hospital will remain vigilant.
"We're not going to put any of these people in a waiting room. We're going to identify them up front to the extent we can. We're hoping that they can be identified even on the way to hospital in which case they won't even go to the emergency room they'll go straight to the isolation room."
The province's nurses have voiced concerns about preparedness for Ontario's front-line health care workers.
At LHSC though, Walker says staff training is taking place that involves the use of protective suits.
"If we have such a patient, the health care worker or any other worker who is putting on or taking off a suit there will [have] a 'buddy' there watching everything they do to help them through the procedure."
Health Minister Eric Hoskins is set to release Ontario-wide hospital guideline, but infection control practices that resulted from the SARS outbreak are already in place at hospitals like LHSC.
"One of the things we learned was, when you're dealing with a new disease - and Ebola is still in a sense a new disease at least in our practice - you have to be a little bit humble. You have to recognize that you have to learn, learn, learn," Walker says.
So far there have been eight suspected cases of Ebola in Ontario, but every one of them has turned out to be negative for the deadly virus.
The Ebola fears in Canada come as we head into this year's flu season.
Marlene Price, manager of the vaccine preventable disease team at the Middlesex-London Health Unit, says "There is much more risk of getting sick from influenza in our community than Ebola."
It remains to be seen if awareness of infectious disease prompted by Ebola will also mean an increase in people getting their flu shots.
Price says "I know there is hope for a vaccine for Ebola. We know we have a good and safe vaccine for influenza."
