Top UK doctor: Ebola screening should be improved

Photo: AP/Abbas Dulleh
AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s chief medical officer has acknowledged that Ebola screening procedures should be improved, after a nurse was cleared to fly hours before she was diagnosed with the disease.

Nurse Pauline Cafferkey flew from London to Glasgow on Sunday after returning from Sierra Leone. Her temperature was taken seven times at Heathrow Airport, but was found to be normal and she was allowed to fly.

She developed a fever Monday and is being treated in an isolation unit.

Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies said Wednesday “the process does seem to have not been as good as we all want to see.” But she said Cafferkey had not been showing symptoms and posed little risk to fellow passengers.

She said screening procedures for people returning from West Africa are being reviewed.

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