Crew and Passenger Health

Hello everyone,

This will be my last post of this year as I will be on leave shortly and I would like to take this opportunity to wish every PAGNet member my best wishes for the forthcoming New Year and a happy holiday to those of you celebrating in the forthcoming weeks.

Dear Colleagues,

This is interesting, albeit tragic news concerning the above vessel. Various websites including vesselfinder.com are reporting that 2 crew died and 13 were hospitalised following a suspected food poisoning on the Polish owned MV Nefryt while in port in the Ivory Coast. No related news has been posted by WHO but it may come through in the future via various disease outbreak news sources.  I thought it worth sharing with colleagues to highlight what can go wrong on-board vessels.

Dear Colleagues,

An interesting matter has arisen about food labelling in relation to “expiry dates” and the interpretation of them. We hope that this will start a lively discussion and lead to a greater understanding behind the purpose of expiry dates on food.

Dear colleagues and friends,

The current Ebola outbreak remains the world's largest and deadliest to date. It goes without saying that it has put a huge strain on the health system in some countries and has challenged some others. Even the report of the first meeting of the review committee on the role of the IHR in the Ebola outbreak and response (Geneva, 24-25 August 2015) underlines that “The Ebola outbreak offers the best chance for transforming the global response to health emergencies”.

Dear Martin and colleagues,

Following your advice from the SHIPSAN newsletter number 14, I have recently finished the e-learning course regarding the different issues of ballast water in the Globallast website.

All in all I found it deeply motivating but in the end as you well pointed out BW checks are often seen as a lower priority to a Port Health Officer.