NHS staff are being warned to be on high alert for symptoms of Ebola, and to ensure they've adequate PPE supplies, amid concerns that Uganda's escalating outbreak - for which there is no known cure - could lead to cases among travellers.

Cases in the east African country are being driven by the Sudan strain, which has no approved jab and a mortality rate of over 50%.

While the risk to people in the UK remains very low, the UK Health Security Agency says it is monitoring the emerging infection and - with international travel expected to increase in the run up to Christmas - it is asking frontline healthcare professionals such as doctors and nurses to be on their guard.

A public health alert has been issued, which tells healthcare workers to be vigilant to the symptoms in patients who have recently returned from affected areas, and reminds NHS staff of the UK's established procedures for infection control and testing.

Symptoms of Ebola can begin with just a headache or fever but as the infection spreads the bodily internally bleeds to death.

Uganda's outbreak, says the World Health Organisation, currently numbers more than 60 official cases and 29 confirmed deaths and while no cases have so far been reported outside the country there are fears that with no current cure this outbreak may prove hard to contain.

It was between 2014 and 2016 that Africa saw its worst ever outbreak when 28,000 Ebola cases and more than 11,000 deaths were reported across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone together with an additional 36 cases and 15 deaths that happened when the outbreak spread outside of those three countries.

Unlike Covid-19, which is transmitted through the air, Ebola is spread through bodily fluids, such as an infectious person’s blood, vomit, urine, saliva or sweat, which has promoted the warning specifically to healthcare workers to be alert to any potential risks.

Dr Meera Chand, UKHSA Director of Clinical and Emerging Infection, said: "UKHSA constantly monitors emerging infection threats in collaboration with partners across the world.

"We are aware of an outbreak of Ebola cases in Uganda and are monitoring the situation closely. The risk to the public in the UK is very low."

The UK is not the only country to be stepping-up protection measures as Uganda's outbreak grows and scientists rush to find a successful vaccine.

The US has announced it will now screen all arrivals from Uganda for Ebola, with those who have visited the country in the last 21 days now being required to pass through either New York's JFK, Newark, Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare or Washington Dulles airports to be checked on arrival.

There has never been a case of Ebola being contracted in the UK however two cases caught overseas were transported here in 2014 during the outbreak in West Africa. Both patients recovered after treatment in specialist high consequence infectious disease units.