Whitehall's emergencies committee discusses possibility of an Ebola outbreak in the UK
London, England ( October 9, 2014) - - -The worsening Ebola crisis in West Africa and what screening processes are needed if the killer virus threatens the United Kingdom went under a political, security and economic microscope at No 10 Downing Street today during a meeting of COBRA - Whitehall's emergencies committee - headed by prime Minister David Cameron.
It came as Public Health England (PHE) - a government body set up to protect the public's health - said it had no plans to bring in screening for the disease which has already claimed 3,400 lives in West Africa.
An un-named Home Affairs minister told ‘The Independent' (October 9) that Britain should consider introducing screening for Ebola carriers arriving at airports after a Spanish nurse became the first person to have caught the virus in Europe.
Said Professor Tom Solomon, director of the UK's Health Protection Research Unit in Infections at the Institute of Infection and Global health, University of Liverpool: "The news that a nurse in Spain has become infected with Ebola should be a final trigger, if anyone needed it, that Ebola is not just a little local difficulty in Africa but is a threat that could potentially impact on all of us."
He added: "Its arrival in the United States was predicted and we should expect this may happen again in the USA as well as in Europe. We have to accept that it is probable that a small number of cases of Ebola will arrive in the UK."
At the same time, The World Health Organisation's European director Susanna Jakab, warned that further cases on the European continent were inevitable. "It is, "she said, "quite unavoidable that such incidents will happen in the future because of the extensive travel both from Europe to the affected countries and the other way around."
Britain handles 40 flights a week from West Africa. Most are from Lagos to Heathrow but there are also services from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, Accra in Ghana and Banjul in The Gambia.
A spokesperson for PHE said: "There are no plans to introduce entry screening from Ebola in the UK. This would require the UK to screen every returning traveler, as people could return to the UK from an affected country through any port of entry.
Reports published here say that the aviation world is watching the spread of Ebola with increasing alarm, as travellers' fears about contracting the disease appear to be hitting airline booking and tourist trips to West Africa.
Today's meeting chaired by Cameron was arranged before news came in about the Spanish nurse catching the virus. The spread of the virus into Europe gave the meeting added urgency.
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