Ebola could soon ‘spread globally’ health chiefs warn as cases top 10,000 – experts reveal how soon killer virus could reach the UK

Britain is ‘not safe’ from Africa’s ‘unprecedented’ Ebola outbreak, the continent’s top health official has warned.

Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, has put Europe on red alert as cases of the virus surpassed 10,000 and deaths hit 5,000.

The virus was detected in May in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and has been largely confined to African nations such as Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria.

But Dr Kaseya said the ‘geographic extension of this outbreak is unprecedented’ and warned that health officials worldwide must be prepared.

‘We want all countries to know that they are not safe if they don’t take appropriate measures,’ he said. ‘Each country, not only in the African region, but all continents, must now increase the preparedness level and the possibility for treatment.’

Dr Kaseya compared the current situation to countries thinking they would not be affected by Covid before the pandemic struck.

‘We don’t want to see the UK and other countries become a hotspot,’ he added.

Experts say that Britain could be at risk of the virus arriving undetected for weeks – and that Dr Kaseya is ‘right to be concerned’.

Kenya Red Cross workers in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. Authorities have detected several cases in the central African country

‘There have been several cases already in Europe from this epidemic,’ said Dr Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia. 

Professor Hunter said transmission could occur from an imported case of the virus at any time, although he stressed that this is ‘pretty rare’.

‘The fact is that Ebola is not that transmissible and usually requires close contact with a case or their body fluids,’ he continued.

‘Furthermore, the infectiousness of a case increases as the case becomes more ill and especially as they approach death.’

Professor Hunter said patients become most infectious when they are seriously ill.

He said that in Britain they would be identified and hospitalised before infecting large numbers of people.

He added that ‘although nothing is impossible’, the risk that Britain ‘would become a hotspot of Ebola remains very low’.

Dr Charlotte Houldcroft, assistant professor of virus genomics at the University of Cambridge, said Ebola could reach the UK subtly.

This is because infected travellers can carry the virus for three weeks before symptoms appear.

‘The UK is at risk from any infectious disease with a long incubation period,’ she said.

‘People can be exposed abroad, travel feeling well, but be incubating an infection that they fall ill with once back in the UK. 

‘Ebola infections normally incubate for eight to ten days, but it can be as long as 21 days before in infected person shows symptoms. 

‘That’s a wide window for travellers to fly home not knowing they are sick.’

Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, warned Britain is ‘not safe’ from the ‘unprecedented’ Ebola outbreak

However, Dr Houldcroft said Britain would be prepared to deal with any cases, saying that ‘this isn’t a situation like Covid’.

‘Ebola typically spreads a bit more slowly than [Covid], giving measures like contact tracing time to catch up with suspected cases.’

Sir Andrew Pollard, a professor of infection and immunity at the University of Oxford, said Dr Kaseya is ‘right that we should all be concerned’.

But he agreed with Dr Houldcroft that the UK would be well equipped to identify cases.

The stark warnings from Dr Kaseya comes just days after a Swiss woman contracted Ebola in Nigeria.

She was treated by medics in West Africa before being transferred to Geneva for further attention.

France is the only non-African country to detect a confirmed case of Ebola when a doctor returned from the DRC.

Meanwhile, in Britain, a suspected Ebola case prompted the precautionary shutdown of part of Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in June.

The patient later tested negative. 

The current Ebola outbreak has been driven by a rare strain, named Bundibugyo, which can kill up to 50 per cent of patients it infects.

It spreads through direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids of a person who is sick or has died from the virus, or through contact with contaminated surfaces. 

Bundibugyo currently has no vaccine but scientists are racing to develop a jab, with trials underway. 

Dr Kaseya said results are due in the next three to six months.

A successful vaccine would likely protect patients from severe illness and death as well as limit the spread of the virus. However, there is no guarantee that the jab will be effective.

The current outbreak is the largest in the DRC’s history and the second-largest ever, behind a major spread between 2014 and 2016 that caused more than 28,000 cases and 11,000 deaths across West Africa.

Symptoms are the same across all Ebola variants.

It starts with a flu-like fever, headache, muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhoea before progressing to internal bleeding, organ failure and, in many cases, death.

The origin of the Bundibugyo strain is unknown but some researchers believe it was passed on to humans by fruit bats.

It was first recorded in 2007 and takes its name from the area of western Uganda, where it was spotted.

It then arose for a second time in the DRC in 2012. However, both outbreaks were smaller, with estimates suggesting there were around 200 cases and 66 deaths.