De Beers Marine Namibia said this week that one of the company employee’s has tested positive to H1N1 Influenza.
“The employee came on board the mining vessel on Tuesday, 4 August, following his 28-day shore-leave period,” the company said.
After two days onboard he showed some symptoms of flu and was flown off the vessel together with another close colleague who also showed similar flu symptoms. Medical screening and tests were conducted at Oranjemund Hospital and a swab test was sent away to Pathcare for analysis. The employee recovered and was declared fit for duty and transported back to the vessel.
While on board, the employee’s test came back positive. He was subsequently flown off the vessel and is currently in the hospital at Oranjemund for observation. His colleague and others tested negative for the H1N1 virus.
The company said in recognition of the potentially serious impact that H1N1 could have on Namibia and on its employees, the company introduced well ahead of this incident an H1N1 policy, procedure and response plan. In addition to the information dissemination and awareness campaign, all employees and visitors are required to undergo mandatory basic screening tests for H1N1-like symptoms prior to boarding the vessels.
On the vessels, all employees and visitors are monitored daily. Emergency preparedness exercises, including for contagious deceases outbreaks, are carried out on a regular basis to test our readiness and effectiveness of the medical evacuation procedure and the various emergency services’ responses.