Staff tell of fears as jet from Africa is quarantined after the death of passenger who was 'sweating and vomiting' before she collapsed
Airport staff tonight told of their fears of an Ebola outbreak after a passenger from Sierra Leone collapsed and died as she got off a plane at Gatwick.
Workers said they were terrified the virus could spread globally through the busy international hub from the West African country which is in the grip of the deadly epidemic.
The woman, said to be 72, became ill on the gangway after she left a Gambia Bird jet with 128 passengers on board.
She died in hospital on Saturday.
Ebola has killed 256 people in Sierra Leone.
A total of 826 have died in West Africa since the outbreak began in February.
Tests were carried out to see if the woman had the disease.
The plane was quarantined as officials desperately tried to trace everyone who had been in contact with the woman.
Airport workers faced an anxious wait to see if the woman had Ebola. One said: “Everyone’s just petrified.
“We’ve all seen how many people have died from Ebola, especially in Sierra Leone, and it’s terrifying.”
Speaking of the horrific moment the passenger collapsed, the shocked staff member added: “The woman was sweating buckets and vomiting.
“Paramedics arrived to try and help her. The next thing everybody was there… emergency crews, airfield operations, even immigration.
“They closed down the jet bridge and put the aircraft into quarantine.
“They took everyone’s details, even the guy who fuels the aircraft.”
The plane carrying the woman came from Freetown in Sierra Leone – a country with the highest number of victims from the disease.
It stopped at Banjul in The Gambia before landing in Gatwick at 8.15am on Saturday after a five-hour flight.
Public Health England tried to allay fears of an Ebola breakout in Britain.
It said the woman showed no symptoms during the flight.
One official added: “Public Health England is aware a passenger arriving on a flight from The Gambia that landed at Gatwick airport on Saturday fell ill shortly after disembarking.
"The passenger was taken to hospital and sadly died.
“In line with standard procedures, tests are being undertaken to determine the cause of death.
“The patient’s symptoms suggest that Ebola is very unlikely but as a precaution this is one of the tests being undertaken.
"The patient was not symptomatic on the plane and therefore there is no risk of Ebola being passed on to either flight crew or other passengers.
“England has world class health care and disease control systems which are active permanently, regularly tested and proven to be effective.
“As such, if the UK does see a case of imported Ebola, this will not result in an outbreak in this country.”
South East Ambulance Service confirmed it had dealt with the sick woman at the airport.
Communications chief Janine Compton said: “We attended Gatwick airport at 8.30am on Saturday to attend an adult female patient who was seriously ill.
"She was taken to East Surrey Hospital in Redhill where she subsequently died.”
A Gatwick airport spokeswoman added: “A passenger collapsed after disembarking a flight from the Gambia.
"She was treated by airport medical staff at the scene but died later in hospital. The cause of death is yet to be confirmed.”
At around 11pm on Sunday, the Department of Health said that tests for the deadly Ebola virus on the woman who died at Gatwick had proved negative.
Symptoms in the later stages include external and internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea.
At this point the disease is highly contagious.
Victims have a 90% chance of dying, although doctors said in this epidemic the rate is 60%.
The outbreak began in the forests of eastern Guinea in February.
It quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
A jump in the number of cases and the death toll has raised international concern and placed under-resourced health facilities in the West African nations under strain.
Last week, the Ebola crisis was described as out of control by World Health Organisation chief Margaret Chan and could be “catastrophic”.
At the same time, Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency and called in troops to quarantine victims.
Liberia also imposed controls.
Ms Chan revealed 60 doctors, nurses and health care workers had now lost their lives trying to save others.
She said: “This outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it.
“If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socio-economic disruption as well as a high risk of spread to other countries.”
Ms Chan met the presidents of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.
She told them: “This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response.”
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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