Flight attendants at Air Canada have been given the green light to wear disposable gloves aboard flights to help protect themselves against the chance of contacting Ebola.
Air Canada responded to a union request Thursday, saying they have no problem with their flight attendants wearing gloves.
"We have no objection to the elective use of gloves under these circumstances, provided that crew continue to follow (public health) guidelines...specifically that frequent, effective hand-washing take place, as gloves do not replace proper hand hygiene," wrote Samuel Elfassy, the airline's senior director for corporate safety and Dr. Jim Chung, its chief medical officer.Air Transat, Porter Airlines, WestJet Airlines said they already permit employees to use disposable gloves.
Michel Cournoyer, president of Air Canada Component of CUPE, said flight attendants believe they could be at risk of infection because they are constantly handling glasses and cutlery that could be covered with contaminated saliva from passengers.
“It’s a question of health and it’s also a question to add a measure that prevents contact with bodily fluid. I know sometimes it’s perceived as more elegant not to wear gloves, but it’s life-threatening. It’s dangerous,"
Air Canada flight attendants say they also want to see more safety measures beyond having health officers looking for fevers or signs of illness in air passengers.
The flight attendants want to be informed when at-risk passengers arrive or connect from Ebola-affected countries and board their flights. They also want to ensure that all members of the cleaning staff and catering staff are informed when possibly infected passengers have been aboard.
Quarantine officers have been working at six Canadian airports to screen travellers for symptoms of Ebola. Canada’s Border Services Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada have been working in tandem to pinpoint all people flying into Canada who have travelled to the heart of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
So far, about 76 people arriving in Toronto and Montreal between Sept. 26 and Oct. 10 were segregated for testing and none of them werefound to be infected with Ebola.
There have not been any reported cases of Ebola in Canada and Air Canada does not fly to Africa, so the risk of infection is fairly low.
The World Health Organization stresses that Ebola patients are not contagious until they begin showing symptoms of the disease. As well, most infectious diseases experts say the amount of virus that patients shed early in the illness is low and then grows as the illness progresses.
The virus is present in infected patients' fluids, primarily their blood, vomit or diarrhea. While studies have found the Ebola virus in the saliva of infected patients, the WHO says it was usually found in patients who were already severely ill.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that a nurse who treated a Liberian man who died in Dallas of Ebola had been given the OK by an official from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to take a flight from Cleveland to Dallas, because her fever was below the threshold set by the agency.
The nurse was later diagnosed with Ebola and is being treated in a biohazard infectious disease centre at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
With files from The Canadian Press
