Govt reviews screening after Ebola nurse error

Agencies/LondonScreening protocols are being reviewed at London’s Heathrow Airport after a nurse who was returning to Britain from West Africa- and who suspected she had Ebola - was allowed to board a domestic flight, officials said yesterday.Pauline Cafferkey, 39, is the first to be diagnosed with Ebola in Britain and is in a specialist isolation ward at London’s Royal Free Hospital.She arrived on a flight from Sierra Leone on Sunday night and had her temperature taken six times before being allowed to board a flight for Glasgow.She reported she was sick on Monday and admitted to a hospital in Glasgow.Dame Sally Davis, the government’s chief medical officer, said a review was under way, but that Cafferkey, despite saying she felt unwell, had no symptoms and her temperature was within an acceptable range.“She would not be transmitting the virus, therefore she was cleared as fit to fly,” Davis said.A nurse for 16 years, Cafferkey was one of 30 NHS volunteers who spent five weeks helping to treat Ebola patients in Sierra Leone with Save the Children. She was described by colleagues as “terribly committed” and prior to flying to the affected region told BBC’s Good Morning Scotland: “For me, it was kind of a natural thing; I couldn’t think of any reason not to go.”She wrote from Sierra Leone for The Scotsman about the “all consuming” nature of her work with victims there and of witnessing whole families wiped out by the disease.The PHE (Public Health England)  vowed to review its quarantine procedures after they were branded “utterly illogical” by an NHS doctor who returned from Africa with Cafferkey. Dr Martin Deahl, who sat next to Cafferkey on a flight to the UK from Sierra Leone, told the Guardian that public health was being put at risk by “totally inadequate” screening facilities at Heathrow airport. He also criticised PHE guidance that allows health workers who have had direct contact with Ebola victims to travel home on public transport once they arrive at a UK airport, but tells them not to catch buses, trains or planes or enter crowded places once they are at home.In response, PHE confirmed it would review its screening procedures but said they were in line with other organisations that had sent volunteers to tackle the Ebola outbreak in west Africa. Officials are now urgently trying to trace those who took the same flights from Casablanca to London and from London to Glasgow with Cafferkey. More than 100 passengers have still not been traced.Davies confirmed that Cafferkey would be offered plasma from European Ebola survivors including the British nurse William Pooley, who recovered from Ebola in September. Davies said the experimental drug ZMapp, which was used to treat Pooley, was not available. She stressed that the risk to the general public of contracting Ebola was still extremely low and called for accurate reporting of the ways that Ebola can be spread - through bodily fluids and not merely skin contact. Dr Paul Cosford, PHE’s medical director, acknowledged the authorities had come under criticism, but said the government’s plans for containing Ebola were robust. He said everyone who sat within two rows of Cafferkey on the flight has been advised to take their temperature until January 18.In a statement the PHE said: “The Scottish patient was on the returning worker scheme and was screened at Heathrow airport on arrival, in line with standard procedures. At this point they were assessed as per protocol and cleared to travel home. This process was overseen by a medical consultant. Naturally, we are keen to learn whatever we can from the emerging details of this case and will be reviewing what happened and the screening protocols, to see if anything needs to be changed.”