400847 Surveillance and Disaster Planning: Ebola Disaster Plan

This report outlines a comprehensive disaster management plan in response to a hypothetical Ebola outbreak during Independence Day celebrations in Delhi, India. It begins by emphasizing the importance of stakeholder engagement, including the World Health Organization, the national government, healthcare practitioners, and the community, detailing the specific roles and responsibilities of each. The plan addresses resource management, highlighting the need for effective allocation of facilities, funding, personnel, and communication resources. It also explores factors impacting disaster management, such as animal welfare, vulnerable groups, political will, and environmental conditions, while also considering the management of psychological stressors faced by victims. The report concludes by evaluating the effectiveness of a disaster management plan, assessing disaster preparedness, stakeholder responsibilities, resource allocation, and the recovery phase. The plan aims to mitigate the spread of the Ebola virus through proactive measures, ensuring a coordinated response to the outbreak, and providing support to affected individuals.

Running head: DISASTER MANAGEMENT 1
Disaster Management
Name
Institution

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Disaster Management Plan
Ebola is a viral hemorrhagic fever that spreads through direct human contact. The virus can be
transmitted through a broken skin when someone comes into contact with body fluids or blood of
a patient with Ebola (Feldmann & Geisbert, 2011). Sharing of objects such as needles can also
aid in spreading the virus to other people. Being very close to a patient with the Ebola virus
increases the risks of one contacting the virus especially when they lack the appropriate infection
control mechanisms. Doctors are required to properly cover themselves when attending to Ebola
patients to avoid coming into contact with their blood or body fluids (Feldmann & Geisbert,
2011). An Ebola patient mixing with a lot of people like was the case at the Independence Day in
Delhi. The patient was able to mix with several people, among them his friends and family
members thus putting them at risk of contracting the disease. It is thus important to design a
management plan to mitigate the potential disaster.
Stakeholder engagement is very important in the management of the Ebola virus. Engaging the
key stakeholders in managing this disaster helps in translating the research findings into policies
that can help in mitigating the disaster in future (Folayan et al., 2015). Some of the key
stakeholders include the World Health Organization (WHO), the National government,
healthcare practitioners, and the members of the community. Each of these stakeholders plays an
important role in managing the disaster as explained below.
World Health Organization (WHO)
WHO through its advisory group on Ebola virus continually provides independent guidance on
the strategic response to outbreaks. It also provides guidelines on treatment, prevention, and the
response to public health. The World Health Organization partners with other people to mobilize

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and deploy more experts to help in managing the outbreak and preventing further spread (Gostin,
Lucey & Phelan, 2014). It also mobilizes several relevant laboratories to get ready for the
diagnosis of more cases. WHO also manages communication and information to help in
analyzing and tracking outbreaks and monitoring response activities. It additionally provides
support to field operations by ensuring the security and accommodation of staff to ensure the
epidemic is managed properly (Gostin et al., 2014). The World Health Organization further
collaborates with the national government to ensure immediate access to Ebola preventive and
therapeutic medications in case of any future epidemics.
The National Government
The government must take ownership of the response through its engagement in the situation.
The government prepares and passes information to the public regarding an outbreak. This
information must include the risks of transmission of the virus and protective measures that
individuals should take (Clarke & Dercon, 2016). The government must ensure that the
information is efficiently shared by deploying the right personnel within the information system.
The national government in cooperation with researchers and health practitioners ensures that the
right quarantine measures are taken to prevent the disease from spreading to other people (Clarke
& Dercon, 2016). The government also offers the necessary security to the practitioners during
the process of screening to identify other potential patients. The government further offers
support in terms of finances to ensure that the disaster is properly managed.
Healthcare Practitioners
Healthcare practitioners involved in care provision for patients with the Ebola virus must ensure
that the virus does not spread to other people within the healthcare setting. They must ensure that

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Ebola patients are kept in separate single rooms away from other patients. All medication
equipment that is disposable must be appropriately disposed of after use to prevent the virus
from spreading (Matua, Wal & Locsin, 2015). Additionally, all non-disposable equipment must
be properly cleaned and disinfected before they can be used on other patients. They also play an
important role in ensuring that each individual who enters and leaves the care facility during
Ebola screening is properly accounted for. They evaluate the health risks associated with visiting
restricted areas within the care facility and go as far as restricting the movement with the
quarantine area to prevent the spread of the virus (Matua et al., 2015). The health practitioners
also document and report on the potential cases of Ebola among the tested individuals to ensure
proper steps are taken in the provision of care.
The Community
Community involvement in disaster management and response is very important in preventing
the spread of the Ebola virus. It is important that the community gets actively involved in
responding to the Ebola outbreak to help in driving the infection cases to zero. It is the role of the
community to respond to outbreaks by re-organizing themselves and ensuring that they are safe
from contracting the virus (Southall, DeYoung & Harris, 2017). The community also plays an
important role in the sensitization campaign regarding an Ebola outbreak. Actively engaging the
community ensures that a positive working relationship is created between the researchers, the
government, and the general public. The provision of care to prevent the spread of the virus is,
therefore, made easy.
Resource Management

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All the resources used in the management of the disaster must be appropriately managed to
ensure that the outbreak is sufficiently mitigated. The resources, in this case, include facilities,
funding, people, communication facilities, supplies, special expertise, and information about
potential hazards and threats. These resources must be appropriately managed to ensure their
effective utilization ("Resource Management | Ready.gov", 2019). It is important to have a
capable emergency operations centre to ensure the effective management of resources.
Additionally, the communication between the authority in charge of coordination and the
individual resources organizations is important in appropriately managing resources ("Resource
Management | Ready.gov", 2019). Finally, the resources organizations must be committed to
ensuring that the response to the disaster is effective and the goal of managing the outbreak is
achieved. Lack of proper resource management leads to waste of finances, supplies, and other
materials that are supposed to ensure mitigation of the Ebola virus ("Resource Management |
Ready.gov", 2019). The proper channel of resource allocation must be followed to ensure that
the aim of the disaster management plan is achieved.
Factors that Impact Disaster Management
Disaster management faces a lot of challenges sometimes thus making it difficult to mitigate
disease outbreaks. Some of the factors that affect disaster response plan include animal welfare,
vulnerable groups, political will, time management, and environmental factors such as the
weather. The Ebola virus also affects animals like gorillas and chimpanzees and caring for them
can be challenging thus having an impact on the disaster response plan. Animal welfare prohibits
the testing of chimpanzees for the benefit of humans ("Is animal welfare killing wild apes?",
2019). Therefore, it may be difficult to test other animals for potential signs of the Ebola virus
thus making the management of the disaster difficult. Women and children are the most

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vulnerable groups when it comes to the spread of Ebola. Especially breastfeeding mothers risk
passing the virus to their infants because the virus is carried in body fluids thus jeopardizing the
disaster management (Menéndez, Lucas, Munguambe & Langer, 2015). Environmental factors
such as poor weather also make the implementation of the response plan difficult. Lack of
political goodwill within the nation also make the delivery of the necessary logistics almost
impossible thus hindering the disaster response plan.
Management of Psychological Stressors
The first thing to do to help the victims of this disaster manage the stress that such an epidemic
comes with is by encouraging them to talk about it with their friends and families. Talking helps
to relieve stress especially when the other people can share your feelings (Rabelo et al., 2016).
Additionally, the victims should be encouraged to spend more time with their friends and family
to help with the tough times. Furthermore, a plan should be set up where the victims of the
disaster can spend time engaging in activities that they enjoy thus helping them to get their minds
off the disaster. The victims should be given the right kind of support to ensure that they can
avoid drugs (Rabelo et al., 2016). Drugs may temporarily relieve psychological stress but they
are not the permanent solution. Response personnel such as therapists, psychiatrists, and other
mental health practitioners are very fundamental in ensuring that victims of this disaster can get
back to living their normal lives (Rabelo et al., 2016). This response personnel is very important
in ensuring that the victims can overcome their post-traumatic stress disorders.
Evaluation of a Disaster Management Plan
Several strategies can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a disaster response plan after the
occurrence of the disaster. The first one is the evaluation of the disaster preparedness. It is

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important to strategically plan for emergency response. Preparedness is a standard precondition
for effectively managing an emergency or a disaster like an outbreak of the Ebola virus (Achora
& Kamanyire, 2016). Another strategy of evaluation is assessing how responsibilities are
distributed between the stakeholders in disaster management. An effective disaster management
plan is one where the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder are clearly mentioned.
Another factor that can be used in the evaluation of the effectiveness of a disaster management
plan is the availability and allocation of resources necessary in disaster response (Matua et al.,
2015). Resources may include both financial and human resources that must be appropriately
distributed to ensure that the goals and aims of the disaster response plan are achieved. Finally,
the recovery phase after a disaster occurrence can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a
disaster response plan. This involves rebuilding and rehabilitating the community after the
disaster has been mitigated.

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References
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undergraduate nursing education. Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, 16(1), e15.
Clarke, D. J., & Dercon, S. (2016). Dull Disasters? How planning ahead will make a difference.
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862.
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Matua, G. A., Wal, D. M. V. D., & Locsin, R. C. (2015). Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks:
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