United Kingdom Warned Against Ebola Outbreak

Following Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, universities in the United Kingdom have been put on alert to be ready for a potential outbreak of the Ebola virus when the new term commences by September 2014.

The warning was contained in a letter written by Universities UK, the umbrella body that represents vice-chancellors and was issued to every university giving detailed guidance on how to deal with an outbreak.

Daily Independent reports that the guidance is expected to be sent to various institutions as they were expecting thousands of new students from West Africa.

However, Nigeria, which has confirmed cases of Ebola virus, is the fourth largest suppliers of international students to UK universities while the other three countries with recorded Ebola cases comprising Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone doesn’t have any students enrolled at UK universities.

A spokesman for Universities UK revealed that in 2012-13, the latest year for which figures are available, a total of 9,630 were enrolled.

“The issue is very much on universities’ radars. We circulated to universities the publicly available guidance on the topic” the spokesman said.

The spokesman explained that the guidance spelt out that anyone suspected of having Ebola should immediately be isolated in a side room away from any staff or student contact.

“The side room should have dedicated en-suite facilities or at least a dedicated commode. The level of staff protection is dependent on the patient’s condition” the spokesman said.

It said those who will have contact or any other dealings with the patient must take careful hand hygiene precautions, wearing double gloves and a disposable visor.

According to the guidance: “Evidence from outbreaks strongly indicates that the main routes of transmission of infection are direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membrane) and indirect contact with environments contaminated with splashes or droplets of blood or body fluids. Experts agree that there is no circumstantial or epidemiological evidence of an aerosol transmission risk from patients.”