If someone were to die of Ebola in Malta, the corpse would be placed in double body bags separated by formaldehyde-based granules and then placed in a zinc coffin.

After prayers and a funeral service held at the hospital morgue, burial would take place in a selected site at Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery, according to an editorial in the Malta Medical Journal.

A lookout is being kept for patients with symptoms at the airport

The author, Christopher Barbara, outlines in detail what would happen in the unlikely eventuality of an Ebola case being detected on the island.

A lookout is being kept for patients with symptoms at the airport and at sea ports, by so-called “sentinels for disease surveillance”. All doctors are also keeping their eyes open.

The symptoms include headache, sore throat, muscle pain, sudden fever and intense weakness. At an advanced stage they could include vomiting and diarrhoea, skin rash, internal and external bleeding and impaired liver and kidney function.

These symptoms, together with a history of recent travel to the worst affected countries – Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria – should alert the clinician who would immediately contact the public health medical officers, Dr Barbara writes.

Blood samples would be taken, under precautionary measures, and sent to the Molecular Diagnostics Section at Pathology at Mater Dei Hospital, using the triple packaging systems supplied by the laboratory. If a patient is confirmed positive for Ebola, he is transported to the section of the Infectious Disease Unit at Mater Dei Hospital using the isolator tent.

This tent, equipped with high pressure efficiency filters, isolates the patient from health care workers. The patient is then treated.

If the patient dies, arrangements have been made for the transfer of the body to the hospital morgue.

The health authorities have long been insisting that both Mater Dei Hospital and the Gozo Hospital are equipped to deal with cases of the deadly virus, which was recently detected in Spain.

Following an analysis of the response to a potential case of Ebola on October 3 – which turned out to be malaria – precautions were stepped up and the health authorities are upgrading the protective suits used by hospital staff.