The NHS should be prepared for cases of ebola in Britain "in the coming months", the Health Secretary has said, as questions are raised about the US' response to the outbreak.
Jeremy Hunt said: "I think we will see someone with ebola arriving in the UK, and the chief medical officer thinks it will be a handful of cases in the next three months.
"We have to be prepared, we have very strict procedures. We have to make sure everyone knows about the right procedures."
Mr Hunt was speaking to Sky News after it emerged a nurse with ebola, who was able to board a flight in the US despite suffering from a fever, did tell officials she was running a temperature.
Amber Vinson was able to travel from Cleveland, Ohio, to Dallas, Texas, on a commercial plane even though she was showing the early symptoms of the killer disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now trying to track down 132 other passengers who were on the plane at the same time in case they too have been infected.
CDC director Dr Tom Frieden said Ms Vinson should not have been allowed to travel by plane, but added that "the level of risk to people around her would be extremely low".
However, the admission heaps further pressure on an organisation that has been criticised for the speed of its response to the ebola crisis, and raises questions about the readiness of the US to cope with the virus.
A plane in Madrid has also been isolated and a passenger taken to hospital after reportedly suffering a fever and shivering.
Bob Geldof, meanwhile, has accused world powers of failing African countries, who do not have the finances or facilities to fight ebola.
He said the West's reaction to the outbreak has been "too little, too late".
It comes as British army medics are due to arrive in Sierra Leone to help in the fight against the virus, which has killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa.
A team of 91 British medics, including nurses, doctors and infectious disease consultants, will join 40 soldiers already in Sierra Leone to work at a UK-supported treatment centre, which has 12 out of 92 beds set aside for healthcare workers who risk infection while treating others.
France will start screening passengers for ebola at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport on Saturday, while screening is expected to start at Heathrow airport's Terminal Three.
Ms Vinson, who is one of two nurses in the US to have contracted ebola, has since been transferred to a specialist unit in Atlanta, Georgia, where she will be treated in isolation and monitored.
CDC spokesman David Daigle said Ms Vinson, 29, reported that her temperature was below 100.4 degrees (38C) and had no symptoms. Ebola sufferers are not contagious until they show symptoms.
As a result, the nurse was told she could travel on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 and the plane's crew said Ms Vinson did not exhibit any symptoms during Monday's flight.
Ms Vinson caught ebola after being one of several nurses to treat Thomas Eric Duncan, who came down with the virus and died after travelling to the US from Liberia.
The other infected nurse, 26-year-old Nina Pham, remains in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas and is said to be in stable condition after receiving a plasma transfusion donated by ebola survivor Dr Kent Brantly.
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