Newcastle is on alert to take in Ebola patients following a new outbreak of the deadly disease in West Africa.
The Royal Victoria Infirmary’s infectious disease unit is second in line among UK hospitals to receive British nationals infected with the disease.
A new outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is thought to have killed more than 20 people.
Health bosses in Newcastle say it is “unlikely” they will be called upon to take in any infected patients, but they will be ready should their services be required.
Andrew Welch, medical director of the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, told a board meeting on Tuesday: “It is probably unlikely that we will get any and it is usually aid workers who come back to the UK.
“We are prepared for it. The training is up to date, or will be imminently, at the unit at the RVI.”
In 2015, staff at the RVI treated healthcare workers who had come into contact with an Ebola patient during a previous outbreak.
More than 11,000 people died in a massive outbreak of the disease between 2014 and 2016, which started in Guinea and spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia.
However, hospital trust chairman Sir John Burn said the risk of Ebola spreading as widely this time is significantly less.
He said: “They have gone in as hard and fast as they can. The likelihood of it getting out this time is dramatically reduced.”
Mr Welch warned there are fears the disease could begin to spread because of patients escaping from hospitals in DR Congo.
The biggest outbreak in the country’s history was in 1976, which had 318 reported cases and 280 deaths according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Since the most recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa, a faster way to diagnose the disease has been developed at Northumbria University - potentially saving thousands of lives.
During the Ebola outbreak in Africa in 2014, patients tested for the disease had to provide a blood sample for testing in a specialist lab by highly trained staff.
But a research team led by Dr Sterghios Moschos developed a new test which can be carried out on an amount of blood that is 700 times smaller than previously needed and takes less than 70 minutes to complete.