title: Ebola 2014: Setting up a port health screening programme at an international train station.
abstract: An outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) began in Guinea in December 2013 and was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization in August 2014. In October, the UK government tasked Public Health England (PHE) to set up EVD screening at key ports. The key aim of port-of-entry screening was to identify passengers coming from areas with high risk of EVD, and give them advice to raise their awareness of symptoms and what actions to take. Direct flights from Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia had all been cancelled, so intelligence on passenger numbers and routes was used to identify the most commonly used routes from the affected countries into the UK. One of these was St Pancras International train station. Screening had never previously been implemented at a UK train station so had to be set up from scratch. Key to the success of this was excellent multi-agency working between PHE, the UK Border Force, Eurostar, Network Rail and the Cabinet Office. This paper gives an overview of the activation of EVD screening at St Pancras International and the subsequent decommissioning.
authors.forename: Vivien
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Cleary
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wynne-Evans
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Freed
authors.forename: Katie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fleet
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thorn
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Turbitt
mesh_terms: D004189:Disaster Planning; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D016701:Guinea / Q000453:epidemiology; D019142:Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*; D006801:Humans; D007988:Liberia / Q000453:epidemiology; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D015980:Public Health Practice; D011890:Railroads; D012807:Sierra Leone / Q000453:epidemiology