London - Britain is ready to cope with
an Ebola outbreak, Health Secretary
Jeremy Hunt declared Saturday,
following a nationwide exercise to test
the country's readiness.
The eight-hour exercise featured
actors pretending to have Ebola plus
doctors, nurses and the ambulance
service treating them around the
country.
It was followed by a simulated
meeting of the government's
emergency committee COBRA,
chaired by Hunt.
"This is an extremely useful exercise
and I feel doubly reassured that we
have robust plans in place in the
event that we get an Ebola case in the
UK," he said.
"We will evaluate what went well and
what we need to improve.
"This exercise is just one small part of
our ongoing contingency plans for
Ebola."
The Department of Health said it had
been planning its response to an
Ebola case ever since the outbreak
began in west Africa.
"This vitally important exercise gave a
very realistic test of how prepared the
system is to deal with a case of Ebola,"
said England's Chief Medical Officer
Sally Davies, the government's senior
health adviser.
"Today has included a variety of
scenarios involving personnel from
hospitals, ambulance services and
local authorities."
The exercise was ordered by Prime
Minister David Cameron.
As part of the exercise, a person
collapsed in a shopping centre in
Newcastle, northeast England, and
was placed in isolation in a nearby
hospital, with samples sent to the
government's Porton Down science
laboratory in southeast England.
After Ebola was diagnosed, the patient
was transferred to a London hospital.
In another case, a patient turned up
to a walk-in centre in London with flu-
like symptoms, having recently
returned from west Africa.
The Ebola epidemic has killed over
4,000 people this year, according to
the World Health Organization (WHO),
with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone
the worst hit.
Britain has only treated one case of
Ebola on its shores.
William Pooley, a nurse who
contracted the virus while working in
Sierra Leone, made a full recovery last
month after being treated in a London
hospital.
But concerns have risen since a
Spanish nurse caught Ebola while
treating a patient in a Madrid hospital
and the WHO has warned that other
isolated infections in Europe were
"unavoidable".
Britain announced Wednesday it was
sending 750 military personnel, a
medical ship and three helicopters to
Sierra Leone to help fight the spread
of Ebola.
It also said Thursday it would start
screening travellers coming from
Ebola-hit parts of west Africa at
London's Heathrow and Gatwick
airports and on Eurostar trains to the
capital from Belgium and France.
www.news24.com/nigeria/World/News/Britain-feels-ready-after-Ebola-outbreak-test-20141012