Public Health England (PHE) is
undertaking contact tracing following the confirmed case of Ebola in
a healthcare worker returning from Sierra Leone, and as of 4 p.m. on
Wednesday, has spoken to 85 passengers.
The person had left Sierra Leone on
Sunday and had been a passenger on flight AT596 from Freetown to
Casablanca, flight AT0800 from Casablanca to London, and transferred
at Heathrow to flight BA1478 for onward travel to Glasgow.
“Although the risk of infection to
other passengers on the flights is considered extremely low, PHE is
contacting 100 passengers, and the crew on the flight from Casablanca
to Heathrow,” PHE said in a press statement. An additional 32
international passengers are being contacted by international public
health authorities. Health Protection Scotland is carrying out a
similar exercise for the 71 passengers on the Heathrow to Glasgow
flight, speaking with 56 to date.
People contacted by PHE will be made
aware that a person on their flight was confirmed with Ebola after
they returned to the U.K., although the person would have been in the
very early stages of disease and extremely unlikely to be infectious.
As a precaution, PHE informs people
sitting directly in the vicinity of the passenger (2 rows adjacent,
ahead and behind, comprising 21 passengers) to take their temperature
twice daily until the Jan. 18. Any illness that passengers might
experience beyond that point would not be considered to be related.
Since October, PHE has screened over
1,700 people returning from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
No comments:
Post a Comment