Nigerian Students to UK to face thorough Ebola screening

As a new term begins in September, Universities in the United Kingdom have been put on alert in readiness to receive students from West Africa in the wake of the Ebola virus currently ravaging that region.

Nigeria, which has had confirmed cases of Ebola, is the fourth largest supplier of international students to UK universities. In the 2012/2013 session, a total of 9,630 Nigerian students were enrolled.

Universities UK, the umbrella body that represents vice-chancellors, has written to every university giving detailed guidance on how to deal with an outbreak. The decision was made to send out the guidance because universities are expecting thousands of new students to arrive from West Africa.

The statement makes it clear that anyone suspected of having Ebola should immediately be isolated in a side room away from other staff or students.

The Independent UK quoted a spokesman for Universities UK as saying that: "The issue is very much on universities' radars. We circulated to universities the publicly available guidance on the topic."

"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."

Those dealing with the patient were advised to take careful hand hygiene precautions, wearing double gloves and a disposable visor.

The guidance also reassured university staff: "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."