ISLAMABAD: A World Health Organi­sation (WHO) mission is expected to arrive in Pakistan soon to assess the preparedness and readiness of the country’s health infrastructure to cope with the dangers of the Ebola virus.

Preparations for the deployment of the mission are at an ‘advance stage’, an official of the United Nations’ health agency based in Geneva told Dawn on Saturday.

The assessment would aim to identify gaps in the preparedness and response plans and will specify actions to be taken to address them. WHO has already developed a set of preparedness checklists to assess operational readiness measures to counter the spread of Ebola.

Read: Pakistan ‘ready’ for WHO Ebola spot checks

Pakistan is one of 13 countries east of the Mediterranean that will receive WHO expert assessment missions to assess on-ground levels of preparedness and help enhance operational readiness for Ebola.

WHO assessment missions have already visited Morocco and Somalia, while other missions are heading to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen.

“The deployment of assessment missions is a very important initiative. [They are] not only about Ebola-preparedness and response as such, but (are) expected to have an important impact on preparedness for all other major public health threats in general,” said Dr Ala Alwan, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean.

The WHO fears that the longer Ebola remains uncontrolled in West Africa, the greater the risk of introduction of the virus in the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region.

The principal mode of transmission is international travel of passengers flying out from these countries. However, it is also conceivable that the virus may be spread by travellers using other points of entry, such as sea ports and ground crossings.

On Friday, national health authorities said that all necessary measures were in place at the three main international airports in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore to deal with passengers travelling from countries that had experienced Ebola outbreaks. They said that a WHO mission had been invited to assess the measures, which was due on Nov 23.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2014