SCREENING SHAMBLES THAT LET EBOLA INTO SCOTLAND
Virus nurse allowed to fly to Glasgow after she complained of fever
THE system for protecting the public from ebola was last night branded a shambles. It has emerged that Pauline Cafferkey, the Scots nurse yesterday revealed to be the first person to be diagnosed with the virus in Britain, underwent only cursory checks before she was allowed to return to Glasgow.
Miss Cafferkey, 39, was allowed to l eave Heathrow Airport despite repeatedly complaining of a high temperature.
She was tested an incredible seven times but was still able to board a flight to Glasgow on Sunday night.
On arrival at Glasgow, she walked through the terminal without undergoing any checks and took a taxi
home to the flat she shares with her partner. A full eight hours later, after the nurse felt worse and telephoned the NHS, she was a dmitted to hospital and placed in isolation. It was then confirmed that she had the ebola virus.
The shocking catalogue of missed opportunities to help Miss Cafferkey has put her partner and 70 passengers on her Heathrow to Glasgow flight at risk too.
Last night, England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies admitted there were questions over whether officials should have been ‘more precautionary’.
It came as two more people were being tested for ebola – one a female hillwalker recently returned from West Africa who was staying at a youth hostel in the Highlands.
The second patient was admitted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital on Monday night. It is believed Miss Cafferkey’s partner may also undergo testing.
Miss Cafferkey was placed in isolation at the specialist Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases at Glasgow’s Gartnavel Hospital at 7.50am on Monday and taken to London early yesterday.
She was flown in an RAF C-130 plane under a quarantine tent to contain the virus before being transferred by RAF ambulance to the Royal Free Hospital.
There she may be treated with plasma, the liquid taken from blood, provided by patients who have survived the deadly virus.
That includes Will Pooley, the first Briton to be infected although not on UK soil, who was treated at the Royal Free, recovered and returned to Sierra Leone to volunteer at a hospital. However, the experimental drug ZMapp used to treat Mr Pooley is ‘not available’.
Miss Cafferkey’s parents, Michael and Jean, and her sisters Toni and
‘Direct contact with ebola patients’
Karen who live in Cowdenbeath, Fife, were last night too upset to speak about her progress.
Her partner, believed to be the only person to come into contact with her at her flat in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, has been in touch with Health Protection Scotland.
Health officials have traced those on the Casablanca to Heathrow flight and 63 out of 70 passengers on the Heathrow to Glasgow flight.
Of the eight sitting near Miss Cafferkey, officials yesterday spoke to five and left messages for three.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the Ayrshire-born nurse was doing ‘as well as could be expected’ and that the risk to the public was ‘extremely low to the point of negligible’. Ebola spreads only through bodily fluids such as blood.
But a volunteer who was on the same flight as Miss Cafferkey has criticised the screening and checks on their return from Sierra Leone.
Dr Martin Deahl, 58, from Newport, Shropshire, sat with the 39year- old for part of the journey home and said he was ‘heartbroken’ at her diagnosis of ebola.
He said: ‘The checks at the airport were shambolic. They knew we were coming and maybe should have had more people to talk to us and check our temperatures.
‘We were given testing kits because we were near the highest category of risk of health workers because we have had direct contact with ebola patients. Except the kits ran out and half of us didn’t get them.’
Dr Deahl said Public Health England told volunteers not to use public transport and to avoid crowded places for the next three weeks, but many were allowed public transport to get home from Heathrow.
One of these was Miss Cafferkey, who boarded a flight to Glasgow despite telling officials she thought her temperature was spiking.
She passed through the screening process and had her temperature taken six times in the space of half an hour but it was each time found to be normal – below 37.5c – and she was cleared to leave.
Public Health England has suggested it may now consider lowering the top rate temperature which is classed as suspicious.
Miss Cafferkey, who left Kerry Town, near the Sierra Leone capital Free Town, on Sunday night, was screened there and also believed to have passed through ‘fever detectors’ during a stopover in Casablanca on the way to Heathrow.
As her condition worsened, she might have been stopped if her temperature had been taken at Glasgow Airport when she landed on Sunday. However, in common with all Scottish air and sea ports, there is no ebola screening at Glasgow.
The Scottish Government has defended the policy, citing the fact there are no direct flights to Scotland from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Dame Sally Davies admitted questions had been raised over Heath- row’s screening procedures. She said: ‘She [Miss Cafferkey] was cleared to travel because she didn’t have ebola symptoms. It does raise a question whether we should be more precautionary.’
The UK Government’s Cobra emergency committee has met to discuss the crisis and Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken to Miss Sturgeon.
It has emerged that the planes – or taxi – carrying the infected nurse will not be disinfected before they are used by hundreds of other travellers.
A document carried by one official who attended the Cobra meeting yesterday reads: ‘It is our advice there is no need to decontaminate/ disinfect any of the environment that the current case of ebola has been in contact with. This includes the aeroplanes used in transit.’
The second part of the document is partially concealed but is believed to explain that it also includes vehicles transporting her from the airport to her home.
Miss Cafferkey was inspired to join the profession after seeing images of the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s.
She left her job as a public health
nurse in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, and flew out to help with the ebola crisis on November 23.
While there, she wrote an online diary about her work in the ‘red Zone’, helping patients dying from ebola. She described the bulky protective suits that her group of 30 UK volunteers wore, which cover the entire face.
She said: ‘I feel sorry for the poor patients who have these alien-type people caring for them. especially so for the children.’
Speaking of the death toll, she said: ‘The sad thing is that this is a regular occurrence and we see and hear of whole families being wiped out by this awful disease. My nice community nursing job in Blantyre is far removed from this but at the moment this seems more real.’
Professor Paul Cosford, medical director of england’s Health Protection Agency, said: ‘The patient was screened at Heathrow Airport in line with standard procedures.
‘They did not have any symptoms of a fever, stated they had been well in the previous 24 hours and were cleared to travel home.
‘We are keen to learn 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.’
A Glasgow Airport spokesman said: ‘We have robust port health procedures in place.’
The Scottish Government has set up a helpline for anyone on the BA1478 flight which left Heathrow at 9pm on Sunday bound for Glasgow. The number is 08000 858531.
A spokesman said: ‘As ebola has an incubation period of up to 21 days, screening alone cannot remove the risk of an individual developing symptoms following their return.
‘This is why Health Protection Scotland works to ensure all travellers are registered in the ebola monitoring programme.’
Miss Sturgeon said: ‘Scotland has been preparing for this possibility from the beginning of the outbreak and we are well prepared.
‘We have robust procedures in place to identify cases rapidly. Our health service also has the expertise and facilities to ensure that confirmed ebola cases are contained and isolated, minimising any potential spread of the disease.
‘The last 24 hours have been a real reminder of how selflessly healthcare workers do put themselves at risk to help others and they deserve our gratitude and respect for that.’