Taking needless risks with a deadly virus

As ebola is diagnosed for the first time on British soil, it is important to keep the risk to public health in perspective.

True, this frightening virus has killed more than 7,800 people, almost all in West Africa, since it broke out a year ago.

indeed, our hearts go out to its victims, while we salute the British volunteers who’ve risked their own lives to help.

But mercifully, the epidemic has proved nothing like as serious as first suggested by bodies such as the World health Organisation, which described it apocalyptically as ‘the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times’.

There are also good reasons to hope that sufferers treated in the West should stand a significantly better chance of recovery than those in the Third World.

That said, it is highly reckless to take unnecessary risks with any lethal virus.

Why, then, were there too few staff at heathrow to deal with returning health workers, in a screening process described by one of Miss Cafferkey’s colleagues as ‘chaotic’? ‘They ran out of testing kits and didn’t seem to know what they were doing,’ said Dr Martin Deahl.

Why, too, were ebola volunteers left to make their own way home by public transport, instead of being quarantined, as in the Us?

Meanwhile, if it was necessary to fly Miss Cafferkey to London for treatment, how can we hope that Britain has enough specialist units to cope with any but the most limited outbreak?

it is one thing to keep the risks of ebola in perspective. But it is worryingly negligent not to take basic precautions.