A nurse being treated for Ebola after returning from West Africa should not have been allowed to leave Heathrow airport after displaying symptoms of the disease, health officials have admitted.

Pauline Cafferkey complained of a temperature after leaving a screening area and was retested, but allowed to fly onwards to Glasgow.

Officials are still trying to trace more than 100 passengers on two flights taken by Miss Cafferkey - from Casablanca to Heathrow and then Heathrow to Glasgow. They include some of the people sat in the closest seats to the nurse, who is being treated by experts at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

The nurse was tested in total seven times after landed at Heathrow airport within the space of two hours - once as part of a routine screening, and six more times after complaining of a high temperature around an hour later.

She was allowed to fly after no unusual temperature was detected, Professor Paul Cosford, Director for Health Protection and Medical Director of PHE, told a press conference in London.

 Prof Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, said there were questions over whether officials should have been “more precautionary” before allowing her to leave the airport.

Miss Cafferkey, from Fife, had volunteered at a Save the Children treatment centre near Free Town, Sierra Leone, in November.

She was one of 30 NHS volunteers to fly from Sierra Leone to Heathrow airport via Casablanca in Morocco on Sunday, before she flew on to Glasgow.

On landing at Heathrow, she was subject to a temperature test, like other passengers arriving from West African countries affected by the disease.

Her test showed her temperature as normal. However, after spending an hour in the airport, she returned to the screening area complaining of a high temperature.

 Officials then took her temperature another six times over the space of half an hour using an ear thermometer. She was allowed to fly on to Glasgow because the reading remained normal.

She returned to her home in a taxi, before ringing the NHS as her condition worsened.

Prof Davies said: “She was cleared to travel because she did not have a significant raised temperature.

“It does raise a question whether we should be more precautionary. The risk that with no temperature, but that she came back, appears to have been very low. But that is why we look at what we do all the time to see should we be more precautionary.”

She said the NHS would “learn lessons” from its handling of Miss Cafferkey’s case, and said the response was better than that shown in the case of William Pooley, the first person to be treated for Ebola in Britain.

Mr Cosford said that screening processes would be reviewed, but said the purpose was to educate high-risk travellers so that they report any symptoms early and before they become infectious.

Health officials have traced 45 out of the 133 people on the Royal Air Maroc flight AT0800 from Casablana to Heathrow Terminal 4.

They have also traced 56 out of 72 people on British Airways flight BA1478 from Heathrow to Glasgow Airport, which landed at 11.30pm on Sunday night.

It means just 101 out of 205 people have been traced. Prof Cosford said the process was being delayed because flights had been booked through travel agents, making it slow to trace contact details.

The eight people sat immediately surrounding Miss Cafferkey are being sought as a priority, and they will be told to take their temperatures regularly until January 18.

Prof Davies stressed the risk to the public is very low. Ebola can only be transmitted through the bodily fluids of an infected person, and cannot be carried through the air or by skin to skin contact.

She said a forecast that Britain would see a “handful” of cases over the course of the outbreak is unchanged.

Two more people are being tested as reporting potential symptoms of Ebola: one at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and one at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro.

Miss Cafferkey may now be offered plasma with anti-bodies donated by Mr Pooley, the nurse who was successfully treated at The Royal Free after developing Ebola in Sierra Leone.

He is one of a number of donors to a European network of recovered patients.

"We do have available a small amount of convalescent plasma. Plasma is the liquid of blood and convalescent is the recovery phase.

"Will Pooley gave a donation of the plasma and the theory is as we fight off infections we make anti-bodies and if you harvest the plasma you got a source of antibodies that you can put in to someone and you'd expect it to work. But the cornerstone of treatment remains fluid and electrolyte treatment," said Prof Davies.

Prof Davies said the experimental drug ZMapp, which was used to treat Mr Pooley, the first UK citizen to contract the disease, is "not available at the moment".

One of Miss Cafferkey’s colleagues, who sat next to her on the flight to Heathrow, said the screening at Heathrow was “disorganised” and said she should not have been allowed to fly on to Glasgow.

"We got to Heathrow, off the plane just like any other passenger, and then got to UK Border Agency staff who checked the passports.

"At that point we were identified as having come from Sierra Leone and escorted by a Border Agency officer to a suite of rooms just off that arrivals hall and where we waited to have our so-called health check.

"The rooms were very small, the staff were small in number and seemed inadequately prepared, and the thermometers and the kit that we were given to check our own temperatures every day for the next three weeks, they basically ran out so half of us didn't get that kit. Mine is supposed to be couriered over today.”

He added: "If there had been alternative arrangements for poor Pauline, an awful lot of people on that flight to Glasgow wouldn't be going through the anxiety and the stress that I am sure they are going through at the moment."

Bruce Keogh, the medical director of the NHS, said it was normal practice for kits to be couriered to returning health workers, but some had been handed out in the airports due to pressure on parcel delivery firms over Christmas.

David Cameron today chaired a meeting of Cobra, the Government emergency committee, with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon joining by video link.

“He was reassured that the robust and well-practised procedures that had been put in place were being followed and that the risk to the general public remained very low,” a Downing Street spokesman said.

“The Prime Minister also paid tribute to all those working to save lives in Sierra Leone and the important job they are doing. His thoughts are with the patient and her family and friends at this time.”

Miss Cafferkey's flat, the aeroplanes and the taxi she travelled home in should not be disinfected, the Cobra meeting was told.

A memo of official advice, photographed as it was carried out of Downing Street by an official, said there was "no need" to sterilise the seats or bathrooms of any of the places she had travelled by she was admitted promptly.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of Parliament’s Home Affairs select committee, called for a full review of screening procedures at UK airports.

Systems must be toughened to ensure there is not a repeat of this situation so that the public is reassured that the Government is doing all it can to prevent the spread of the disease, Mr Vaz said.

He said that the Government should also commit to financially support north African hubs to ensure that they are carrying out proper screening before people depart for the UK.

“There needs to be a review of what we are doing. But we need to go back to the hubs where these people are coming from and give them help.”

He added: “The most effective way for us to control this is to help the hub countries. Those north African hubs are in real need of support.”

Source: telegraph