{{The Ebola virus, which has killed more than 670 people in West Africa, is a “threat” to the UK, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has told media.}}<\/p>\n
He said he would chair an emergency Cobra meeting on the issue later.<\/p>\n
No Britons had been affected so far and there were no cases in the UK, he said, adding that the government was viewing the outbreak very seriously.<\/p>\n
It comes after Public Health England issued a national alert to UK doctors amid fears the virus could spread.<\/p>\n
Last week an infected Liberian man was found to have travelled through a major Nigerian airport.<\/p>\n
Several West African airlines have now stopped flying to Liberia and Sierra Leone over concerns about the outbreak.<\/p>\n
Mr Hammond told media the UK government was “absolutely focused” on tackling the threat posed by the disease, including looking at “whether there are precautions we need to take – either in the UK or to protect our nationals in the area abroad”.<\/p>\n
He went on: “At the moment we don’t think any British nationals [abroad] are affected and we are fairly confident there are no cases in the UK.<\/p>\n
“But it is a threat, it is something we need to respond to and we will be doing so through the Cobra mechanism.”<\/p>\n
Earlier, the government’s chief scientist Sir Mark Walport told the Daily Telegraph Ebola was a threat because of how “interconnected” the world was now.<\/p>\n
Sir Mark said: “The most dangerous infections of humans have always been those which have emerged from other species. They are a potential major threat to us.<\/p>\n
“Emerging infectious disease is a global grand challenge. We were lucky with Sars. But we have to do the best horizon scanning.<\/p>\n
“We have to think about risk and managing risk appropriately.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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