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Ebola crisis: disease may already be in Britain as man dies on business trip
The death of a businessman in Macedonia from suspected Ebola has led to fears that the disease may already be in Britain
A Public Health Center vehicle is parked in front of the hotel where a 58-year-old man was taken to hospital and died of severe internal bleeding, in Skopje Photo: Boris Grdanoski/AP
By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
10:00PM BST 09 Oct 2014
Ebola may already be in Britain, it was feared last night, after a businessman who had travelled to Macedonia became the first Briton to die from the disease.
Macedonian officials confirmed that the 56-year-old, who has not been named, had been suffering from fever, vomiting and internal bleeding and that his condition had deteriorated rapidly.
"These are all symptoms of Ebola, which raises suspicions with this patient," said Dr. Jovanka Kostovska of the health ministry's commission for infectious diseases.
A second man who had travelled from London with the victim on October 2 has also been isolated and the hotel they were staying in the Macdeonian capital of Skopje has been sealed off.
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Sampling has been sent to Germany to confirm the cause of death but the disease has an incubation period of up to 21 days, which means the dead man could have been infected in Britain.
Officials said he had not travelled to any country caught up in the outbreak before arriving in Macedonia, but he may have been making his way to Nigeria.
Before his death, the victim had been complaining of a severe stomach ache and had stayed in his hotel for three days. At around 3pm yesterday he was taken to hospital, but he died just 90 minutes after being admitted.
The ambulance crew who took him to hospital have also been isolated.
Elsewhere in Europe, a Prague hospital said it was testing a 56-year-old Czech man with symptoms of the Ebola virus, while the health of an infected Spanish nurse worsened in Madrid, where a total of seven people are in isolation.
Yesterday Downing Street announced that enhanced screening will be brought in at the London airports of Heathrow and Gatwick and at Eurostar Terminals.
The Government, which has up until now insisted additional checks were not necessary, changed guidance following new advice from the Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies.
Under new guidelines, people travelling from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea will be questioned about travel arrangements and recent contacts. They may also face medical checks.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "These measures will help to improve our ability to detect and isolate Ebola cases. However, it is important to stress that given the nature of this disease, no system could offer 100 per cent protection from non-symptomatic cases.
“It is important to remember that the overall risk to the public in the UK continues to be very low, and the UK has some of the best public health protection systems in the world with well-developed and well-tested systems for managing infectious diseases when they arise. Contingency planning is also underway including a national exercise and wider resilience training to ensure the UK is fully prepared.”
Dame Sally said that 'further measures' were necessary to protect the public.
“In view of the concern about the growing number of cases, it is right to consider what further measures could be taken, to ensure that any potential cases arriving in the UK are identified as quickly as possible.
“We remain alert and prepared, should an Ebola case be identified here.”
However Britain is not yet following the lead of America and South Africa by bringing in temperature checks to detect passengers suffering from fevers.
And experts warned that passengers are unlikely to be truthful if they had visited infected areas.
Professor David Mabey, a physician specialising in infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said he believed that questionnaires asking passengers about their recent travel, were a waste of time".
He said: "I think people will lie. They don't want to be subjected to the inconvenience. Why would people tell the truth?
"If last week your aunt died of Ebola but you feel fine, are you going to be honest when you get to the airport and risk being detained and missing your holiday?”
Professor Julian Hiscox, from the Institute of Infection and Global Health at the University of Liverpool, said public information was key to prevent the spread of Ebola.
"What we need to see is information handed to people as they step off planes and a phone number people can call if they start to develop symptoms.
"The main thing is not to panic about this or to drive people coming to the UK underground.”
Prof David Evans, Professor of Virology, University of Warwick, said that enhanced screening of inbound passengers was the most that can be done 'to balance practicality and effectiveness with the need to reassure the UK public that their health is being protected.'
However Dr Ben Neuman, Lecturer in Virology, University of Reading, said: "I don't think there is a strong scientific case that airport screening will help keep Ebola out of the UK, but it’s a step that will reassure some people."
Professor Peter Piot, who was part of the team that identified Ebola in 1976, said that more European cases were ‘unavoidable’
The Foreign Office said it was still working to confirm that the men were British.
Last night former foreign secretary David Miliband said there is no question that the West has been slow in its response to the Ebola crisis.
Mr Miliband, who is in Sierra Leone with the International Rescue Committee which he heads, called on the "big guns" of the world to lend more support.
"There's no question that there's been a tardiness, a slowness, a lateness of response,” he told Channel 4 news.
Dr Marc Sprenger, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said current models predicted between 500,000 and 1,500,000 cases in West Africa by the end of January if no action is taken.
He said while official figures put the number of cases so far at around 8,000, in reality the collapse of West African health care meant the true scale was unknown and could be two-and-a-half times higher.
He told the Telegraph that good exit screening from affected regions was higher priority than entry screening at British airports.
He said: “First of all you need to have exit screening. If exit screening is well done, and the flight is not that long, then in fact it’s not necessary to have the person checked on arrival.
But while it may be simple to screen flights coming direct from West Africa, he said it would be far more difficult to track and screen connecting passengers.
And he warned they were of limited use. He said: “You only catch the people who have fever but a lot of people are in an incubation period and will develop later and become infectious.”
The death of a businessman in Macedonia from suspected Ebola has led to fears that the disease may already be in Britain
A Public Health Center vehicle is parked in front of the hotel where a 58-year-old man was taken to hospital and died of severe internal bleeding, in Skopje Photo: Boris Grdanoski/AP By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
10:00PM BST 09 Oct 2014
Ebola may already be in Britain, it was feared last night, after a businessman who had travelled to Macedonia became the first Briton to die from the disease.
Macedonian officials confirmed that the 56-year-old, who has not been named, had been suffering from fever, vomiting and internal bleeding and that his condition had deteriorated rapidly.
"These are all symptoms of Ebola, which raises suspicions with this patient," said Dr. Jovanka Kostovska of the health ministry's commission for infectious diseases.
A second man who had travelled from London with the victim on October 2 has also been isolated and the hotel they were staying in the Macdeonian capital of Skopje has been sealed off.
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09 Oct 2014
Sampling has been sent to Germany to confirm the cause of death but the disease has an incubation period of up to 21 days, which means the dead man could have been infected in Britain.
Officials said he had not travelled to any country caught up in the outbreak before arriving in Macedonia, but he may have been making his way to Nigeria.
Before his death, the victim had been complaining of a severe stomach ache and had stayed in his hotel for three days. At around 3pm yesterday he was taken to hospital, but he died just 90 minutes after being admitted.
The ambulance crew who took him to hospital have also been isolated.
Elsewhere in Europe, a Prague hospital said it was testing a 56-year-old Czech man with symptoms of the Ebola virus, while the health of an infected Spanish nurse worsened in Madrid, where a total of seven people are in isolation.
Yesterday Downing Street announced that enhanced screening will be brought in at the London airports of Heathrow and Gatwick and at Eurostar Terminals.
The Government, which has up until now insisted additional checks were not necessary, changed guidance following new advice from the Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies.
Under new guidelines, people travelling from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea will be questioned about travel arrangements and recent contacts. They may also face medical checks.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "These measures will help to improve our ability to detect and isolate Ebola cases. However, it is important to stress that given the nature of this disease, no system could offer 100 per cent protection from non-symptomatic cases.
“It is important to remember that the overall risk to the public in the UK continues to be very low, and the UK has some of the best public health protection systems in the world with well-developed and well-tested systems for managing infectious diseases when they arise. Contingency planning is also underway including a national exercise and wider resilience training to ensure the UK is fully prepared.”
Dame Sally said that 'further measures' were necessary to protect the public.
“In view of the concern about the growing number of cases, it is right to consider what further measures could be taken, to ensure that any potential cases arriving in the UK are identified as quickly as possible.
“We remain alert and prepared, should an Ebola case be identified here.”
However Britain is not yet following the lead of America and South Africa by bringing in temperature checks to detect passengers suffering from fevers.
And experts warned that passengers are unlikely to be truthful if they had visited infected areas.
Professor David Mabey, a physician specialising in infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said he believed that questionnaires asking passengers about their recent travel, were a waste of time".
He said: "I think people will lie. They don't want to be subjected to the inconvenience. Why would people tell the truth?
"If last week your aunt died of Ebola but you feel fine, are you going to be honest when you get to the airport and risk being detained and missing your holiday?”
Professor Julian Hiscox, from the Institute of Infection and Global Health at the University of Liverpool, said public information was key to prevent the spread of Ebola.
"What we need to see is information handed to people as they step off planes and a phone number people can call if they start to develop symptoms.
"The main thing is not to panic about this or to drive people coming to the UK underground.”
Prof David Evans, Professor of Virology, University of Warwick, said that enhanced screening of inbound passengers was the most that can be done 'to balance practicality and effectiveness with the need to reassure the UK public that their health is being protected.'
However Dr Ben Neuman, Lecturer in Virology, University of Reading, said: "I don't think there is a strong scientific case that airport screening will help keep Ebola out of the UK, but it’s a step that will reassure some people."
Professor Peter Piot, who was part of the team that identified Ebola in 1976, said that more European cases were ‘unavoidable’
The Foreign Office said it was still working to confirm that the men were British.
Last night former foreign secretary David Miliband said there is no question that the West has been slow in its response to the Ebola crisis.
Mr Miliband, who is in Sierra Leone with the International Rescue Committee which he heads, called on the "big guns" of the world to lend more support.
"There's no question that there's been a tardiness, a slowness, a lateness of response,” he told Channel 4 news.
Dr Marc Sprenger, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said current models predicted between 500,000 and 1,500,000 cases in West Africa by the end of January if no action is taken.
He said while official figures put the number of cases so far at around 8,000, in reality the collapse of West African health care meant the true scale was unknown and could be two-and-a-half times higher.
He told the Telegraph that good exit screening from affected regions was higher priority than entry screening at British airports.
He said: “First of all you need to have exit screening. If exit screening is well done, and the flight is not that long, then in fact it’s not necessary to have the person checked on arrival.
But while it may be simple to screen flights coming direct from West Africa, he said it would be far more difficult to track and screen connecting passengers.
And he warned they were of limited use. He said: “You only catch the people who have fever but a lot of people are in an incubation period and will develop later and become infectious.”
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