World news. There is a 50 per cent chance the Ebola virus could reach Britain within three weeks, experts have predicted.
Minister Phillip Hammond. Photo courtesy www.independent.co.uk
The virus is spreading rapidly across West Africa, with more than 3,400 people known to have died and 7,500 infected.
Using Ebola spread patterns and airline traffic data a team of U.S. scientists have calculated the odds of the virus spreading across the world.
They estimate there is a 75 per cent chance Ebola will reach French shores by October 24.
And Belgium has a 40 percent chance of seeing the disease arrive on its territory, while Spain and Switzerland have lower risks of 14 per cent each.
The numbers are based on air travel remaining at full capacity, and are being constantly updated by the researchers, who last reviewed the figures based on data from October 1.
But assuming there is an 80 per cent reduction in travel to reflect that many airlines are halting flights to affected regions, the scientists predict France’s risk is still 25 per cent, and the UK’s is 15 per cent.
Study author and expert in viruses who has been tracking the epidemic, Dr Derek Gatherer, of Lancaster University, said: ‘It’s really a lottery.
‘If this thing continues to rage on in West Africa and indeed gets worse, as some people have predicted, then it’s only a matter of time before one of these cases ends up on a plane to Europe.’
Nigeria, Senegal and the U.S. – where the first case was diagnosed on Tuesday – have all seen people carrying the haemorrhagic fever virus, apparently unwittingly, arrive on their shores.
France is among the countries deemed most likely to be hit next, because the worst affected countries include Guinea, a French-speaking country with busy travel links back.
Britain lies dangerously in the path of the virus, due to Heathrow’s status as one of the world’s biggest travel hubs, with frequent links to Nigeria, where one victim Patrick Sawyer died in July.
France and Britain have each treated one national who was brought home with the disease and then cured.
The scientists’ study suggests that more may bring it to Europe not knowing they are infected.
Photo courtesy http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
The World Health Organisation has not placed any restrictions on air travel and has encouraged airlines to keep flying to the worst-hit countries.
British Airways and Emirates have suspended some flights but other airlines continue to fly to the region.
But the researchers, whose work is published in the journal PLOS, said the risks change every day the epidemic continues.
Professor Alessandro Vespignani of Northeastern University in Boston, who led the research, said: ‘This is not a deterministic list, it’s about probabilities – but those probabilities are growing for everyone.
‘It’s just a matter of who gets lucky and who gets unlucky.
‘Air traffic is the driver.
‘But there are also differences in connections with the affected countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone), as well as different numbers of cases in these three countries – so depending on that, the probability numbers change.’
Ebola, which is transmitted via bodily fluids, becomes most infectious in its final stages.
But there is still a high risk of the virus being passed on in earlier stages, especially since people may not know they are infected as symptoms can take weeks to emerge.
It is therefore feared a sufferer could travel to Britain without knowing they had the disease and infect others.
Last week Thomas Eric Duncan became the first patient to fly into America without knowing he had ebola and 114 people came into contact with him before he was diagnosed.
They were tracked down by health authorities and ten remain under surveillance.
Professor Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at Nottingham University, said many cases ‘can slip through the net’ despite screening at West African airports.
He added: ‘Whilst the risk of imported ebola virus remains small, it’s still a very real risk and one that won’t go away until this outbreak is stopped. Ebola virus isn’t just an African problem.’
Photo courtesy http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
However, the chance of the disease spreading widely or developing into an epidemic in a wealthy, developed country is extremely low, healthcare specialists say.
According to the latest Ebola risk assessment from the European Centres of Disease Prevention and Control, which monitors health and disease in the region, ‘the capacity to detect and confirm cases…is considered to be sufficient to interrupt any possible local transmission of the disease early’.
Dr Gatherer cited Nigeria as an example of how Ebola can be halted with swift and detailed action.
Despite being in West Africa and being home to one of the world’s most crowded, chaotic cities, Nigeria has managed to contain Ebola’s spread to a total of 20 cases and eight deaths, and looks likely to be declared free of the virus in coming weeks.
‘Even if we have a worse case scenario where someone doesn’t present for medical treatment, or..it’s not correctly identified as Ebola, and we get secondary transmission, it’s not likely to be a very long secondary transmission chain,’ he said.
‘People aren’t living in very crowded conditions (in Europe), so the disease doesn’t have the same environment it has in a shanty town in Monrovia, where the environment is perfect for it to spread.
‘It’s a different matter in modern western cities with the very sanitised, sterile lives that we live.’
So far one Briton, 29-year-old nurse William Pooley, has contracted ebola, but he was diagnosed while volunteering in Sierra Leone and was transported to Britain in an isolation tent. Mr Pooley recovered and was discharged from the Royal Free Hospital in north London 10 days after he landed. Article courtesy http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
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