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<p> </p><p>The UK does not specifically screen pre or at entry for Ebola.<br><br>Public
Health England has assessed the risk of importation of Ebola in the UK <br>as very
low. It is extremely unlikely that an outbreak of Ebola would occur in <br>the UK
even if there was to be an imported case, as there are factors operating <br>in West
Africa which would not be seen in the UK. The outbreak in West Africa <br>is driven
by person to person spread in the absence of any infection control <br>precautions.
Human cases of Ebola virus disease have never yet been exported <br>from an outbreak
zone to a European country.<br><br>All UK ports have systems and plans for dealing
with issues of public health <br>concern. However, they all require that the public
health system is firstly <br>notified of the arrival of someone with a suspected disease
of concern. Crew <br>are trained to do this by their respective companies and an example
of the type <br>of guidance that they work towards can be found on the International
Air <br>Transport Association (the international airline trade body) website at: <br><br><br>https://www.iata.org/whatwedo/safety/health/Documents/health-guidelines-cabin-cr<br>ew-2011.pdf
. <br><br>At all UK ports, there is a system for routing reports, produced by the
<br>commander of a craft, to a local health protection team who are available on a
<br>24/7 basis throughout the year. Health protection teams have generic <br>responsibility
for managing incidents of public health concern in all settings <br>including our
ports. They will then take the lead in managing the incident from <br>a public health
perspective with the NHS being responsible for the provision of <br>healthcare.<br><br>The
International Health Regulations (IHR), which entered into force on 15 June <br>2007,
require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health <br>events
to WHO, including Ebola.</p><p> </p>
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