Public Health England delivered letters to doctors urging them to look out for the warning signs of Ebola, which has already killed 672 people in West African Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since it was first diagnosed in February. More than 1,000 others have been infected by the virus, including two American doctors.
Concerns that international air travel could spread the virus were heightened when a Liberian man who had travelled to Lagos in Nigeria died from the disease. However, the disease can go unnoticed for three weeks before symptoms set in, making passenger screening a difficult task.
There is currently no cure or human-safe vaccine for Ebola, which is spread via bodily fluids. Initial symptoms of fever and sore throat develop into vomiting, diarrhea and profuse internal and external bleeding. Victims may die of multiple organ failure within days of first contact, with some strains killing up to 90 percent of sufferers.
The last diagnosed case of Ebola in the UK was in 1979, when someone was accidentally infected in a laboratory. On that occasion, the patient survived.
“It’s possible someone infected will fly to Heathrow having infected other people sitting next to them or by using the toilet,” said Cambridge University’s Peter Walsh, a lecturer in archaeology and anthropology and an Ebola expert.
“This strain of Ebola is probably the second most deadly virus in the world after canine rabies. If you get canine rabies, you’re going to die, but we also have vaccines for that. This is worse than anthrax, but there are vaccines and treatments for anthrax, too.”
But Walsh said that any cases that do reach Britain would be far more manageable than has been the case in West Africa.
“Ebola is pretty containable with modern methods in modern countries,” he said. “You won’t see a major outbreak in the UK.”