DONEGAL, IRELAND, August 22 (RIA Novosi), Mark Hirst – An Irish Catholic priest has told RIA Novosti there is “incredible shock” in his parish at learning that Dessie Quinn, a local man who died Wednesday after returning from West Africa, may be Ireland’s first victim of the deadly Ebola virus.
“It has been an incredible shock for the community. He was a young man, only 44, so it is absolute shock. There is just devastation and trying to figure it out how a young man could have lost his life,” said Father Adrian Gavigan, who was authorized to speak on behalf of Quinn’s bereaved family.
The priest said there was real anger directed at the Irish health authorities, known as the Health Service Executive (HSE), who released a statement yesterday confirming that a recent death was being tested for the Ebola virus.
Quinn had recently returned from Sierra Leone, where he had been working with an Irish-based telecommunications company, and had been receiving treatment for suspected malaria, before dying at his parents’ home in Donegal.
“I am very angry and I think it was a very impersonal way for the HSE to release that statement without first contacting the family to tell them,” Father Gavigan said.
“The family didn’t know before the news broke at six o'clock last night that the health authorities suspected Dessie’s death might be from Ebola,” Father Gavigan told RIA Novosti.
“The family are just devastated. The loss of their son and a brother it is really quite difficult for them, to say the least,” the priest added.
Father Gavigan told RIA Novosti he knew Quinn personally and his extended family who are all from the Mountcharles area.
“It is certainly difficult. It would be difficult enough in the normal sense of losing a family member but more so given the circumstances and now the media attention,” Father Gavigan said.
Quinn’s body is currently resting in a sealed off area of Letterkenny hospital until tests are completed.
HSE spokeswoman Valerie Kavanagh told RIA Novosti, “The HSE was in contact with some family members from the outset of the tragic situation yesterday.
“The story broke in the media just before 6pm yesterday at which point the HSE had to make a public statement on the matter, given the urgency and nature of a public health issue, such as this,” Kavanagh added.
Asked by RIA Novosti whether any formal apology had been offered to the family about the way the information, indicating their relative had possibly died from Ebola, had been released, Kavanagh said, “The HSE has expressed its sincere condolences to the family for their loss.
“It is important to note that the HSE at no point identified or named any individual. Any comment made by the HSE sought to protect the confidentiality of the individual and their family - our statement did not say whether the deceased individual was male or female or what part of Africa they had returned from.”
HSE declined to comment on whether specific health advice had been communicated to anyone who had been in contact with Quinn prior to his death.
Ebola has claimed over 1,350 lives in West Africa and is highly contagious. Symptoms include fever, diarrhea and vomiting and can often be mistaken for symptoms associated with malaria.
Franklin Siakor, a prominent community activist working in Liberia told RIA Novosti there was a need to move Ebola testing equipment out of the US military base to the west of the capital Monrovia and locate it to referral hospitals around the country, “At the moment specimens are being sent to Charlesville [the US military base].
“I was hoping this equipment would be available at every referral hospital for patients to be tested before nurses can admit them into the hospitals,” Siakor told RIA Novosti.
The Center for Disease Control in the US that currently has equipment and medical experts in Liberia has declined to comment on their operations and work in the country.
