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30/07/2014
Ebola Outbreak Threat To UK - Hammond
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said that an ebola virus outbreak in West Africa is a threat to the UK.
Mr Hammond is to chair an emergency Cobra meeting later today (Wednesday) on the outbreak, which has killed almost 700 people.
It is understood that no Britons have been infected to date, but Mr Hammond has told BBC News that the government is taking the outbreak "very seriously".
Mr Hammond went on to say that the government was investigation if there are precautions "we need to take - either in the UK or to protect our nationals in the area abroad".
"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.
"But it is a threat, it is something we need to respond to and we will be doing so through the Cobra mechanism."
(MH/CD)
Mr Hammond is to chair an emergency Cobra meeting later today (Wednesday) on the outbreak, which has killed almost 700 people.
It is understood that no Britons have been infected to date, but Mr Hammond has told BBC News that the government is taking the outbreak "very seriously".
Mr Hammond went on to say that the government was investigation if there are precautions "we need to take - either in the UK or to protect our nationals in the area abroad".
"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.
"But it is a threat, it is something we need to respond to and we will be doing so through the Cobra mechanism."
(MH/CD)
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Backlash over government's SARS response
In the wake of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) warning against travel to Toronto – the first time a Western city has been singled out by the agency – the UK government has been slammed for its "potentially lethal silence" in countering the threat posed by the SARS pandemic.
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