Register IRI issues Marine Safety Advisory No 45-14 Revised
TheRepublic of the Marshall Islands Register issued a Marine Safety Advisory regarding Ebola virus detection and prevention.
World Health Organization (WHO) has posted information regarding safety measures in the event of a seafarer presenting symptoms compatible with Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) (fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding) on board a vessel.
In the event of a suspected diagnosis of EVD on a vessel, immediate expert medical opinion should be sought and the event should be reported as soon as possible to the next port of call by the Captain.
The seafarer should disembark in such a way as to avoid any contact with healthy crew members and wearing a surgical mask. Personnel in contact with the seafarer during the medical evacuation should wear a surgical protection mask and PPE.
Crew members who have been identified through contact tracing should be assessed for their specific level of exposure. Passive self-monitoring of temperature (e.g. monitoring temperature only if feeling feverish) and symptoms or active self-monitoring (e.g. by regular temperature measurement twice a day) for those at higher risk level should be continued for 21 days.
At the request of a governmental port health authority, vessel operators should also facilitate obtaining, from some or all crew members, their contact details (should they need to be contacted) when there is a particular reason to believe they may have been exposed to infection on board the vessel. Additionally, countries may consider requiring arriving vessels to complete and deliver the Maritime Declaration of Health (IHR Annex 8). Measures taken on board should also be noted on the IHR Ship sanitation control certificate (IHR Annex 3).
In addition to the above information from the WHO, limited and/or restricted access to vessels should be enforced.
Under the Convention of Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), necessary steps may be taken in order to ensure the safety of a vessel and its crew members: |
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After a vessel has called at a port in one of the high risk countries, the Master should be prepared for potential delays at future ports while the authorities inspect the vessel and investigate the circumstances of the previous port of call with the crew. It has been suggested the Master should prepare a list of when and where the crew joined the ship for presentation to the authorities including details of whether or not any crew went ashore in a high risk area.
Vessels calling at ports in these affected countries should ensure the ships security plan is correctly implemented and the crew should be extra vigilant for any stowaways trying to board the ship. It is strongly recommended that additional searches are carried out before departing the port and a 24 hour security watch is maintained while in port.
If a stowaway were to successfully board the vessel from one of the above mentioned countries, this will not only increase the risk and threat of Ebola to the crew onboard, but there will be increasing reluctance for other countries to accept such stowaways who have boarded within any of these high risk countries, making disembarking them from the vessel increasingly difficult.
Source: IRI
For more information please read theMARINE SAFETY ADVISORY NO. 45-14 Revised issued byRepublic of the Marshall Islands Register
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