The NHS has been placed on high alert and told to prepare for the potential UK arrival of a lethal strain of the Ebola virus currently spreading in Africa
Britain’s hospitals have been placed on high alert as the NHS is ordered to prepare for a potential Ebola outbreak. Frontline medical staff, including GPs and A&E workers, have been told to brace themselves for potential cases reaching the UK following a rapidly growing surge of the deadly virus in Africa.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued urgent updated guidance warning health chiefs to ensure they can instantly spot and isolate any suspected patients.
While officials insist the risk to the British public remains low, they admit that imported cases are a real possibility. Ebola is a viral haemorrhagic fever that triggers total organ failure and severe internal bleeding.
In its most gruesome advanced stages, victims can bleed directly from their eyes, nose and other parts of the body. Symptoms can strike out of nowhere between two and 21 days after catching it.
It often starts like a standard flu, with a fever, exhaustion, muscle aches and a headache, before rapidly deteriorating into violent vomiting, diarrhoea and catastrophic bleeding.
Hospitals have been urged to check their stockpiles of personal protective equipment (PPE) and make sure staff are fully drilled on how to wear it safely.
Doctors are being told to instantly suspect Ebola in any incredibly sick patient with a fever who has returned from the hot zones within the last 21 days.
Under the strict new rules suspected victims must be treated with maximum urgency, with patients locked down immediately in a single isolation room.
Medics must also use high-level protective gear during assessments and cases must be escalated at speed to specialist health teams, as Ebola is a notifiable disease by law.
The panic comes as a rare mutation called the Bundibugyo strain tears through the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighbouring Uganda.
The World Health Organisation declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern back in May. The latest figures reveal hundreds of suspected cases and dozens of confirmed deaths – and the body count is rising daily.
Health bosses fear the true scale of the nightmare could be much worse, with heaps of suspected cases still being probed.
The strain has a terrifying death rate of between 30 and 50 per cent, making it one of the most lethal diseases on the planet.
In addition, there is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment for this exact strain, meaning stopping it relies entirely on quick isolation and strict hygiene.
The bug is not airborne and only spreads through direct contact with infected bodily fluids like blood, vomit, and spit. Victims can only pass it on once they start showing symptoms.
In response to the threat, urgent warning posters have been slapped up across major UK airports and train stations, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, St Pancras and Birmingham.
The UKHSA posters target travellers returning from Uganda, which has direct weekly flights to Gatwick, and the DRC, where passengers fly into Britain via connecting flights through France and Belgium.
Despite the warning, the UKHSA stresses that the NHS has elite high-containment units ready to handle any imported cases safely. Doctors are also being reminded to rule out more common tropical diseases like malaria first.
Dr Derek Sloan, an infectious diseases expert at St Andrews University, warned that the UK cannot ignore the threat.
He said: “This outbreak, along with the recent Hantavirus cases on a cruise ship and meningococcal meningitis infections in the UK, shows how important it is that we stay vigilant and use effective public health tools to protect our populations.
“Infectious disease outbreaks such as these in our interconnected world cannot be dismissed as someone else’s problem. Incredible institutions across Britain act as our first line of defence in an unpredictable world when the frequency of infectious disease outbreaks is increasing.”