Passengers arriving from west Africa surprised at voluntary nature of screening by staff who seem relatively inexperienced

The first passengers to experience screening for Ebola at Heathrow airport have came through the arrival gates with a mixture of bemusement and mild disappointment.

Sorious Samura, a journalist who travelled via Brussels from Monrovia in Liberia, said staff had asked passengers as they alighted where they had come from.

Undergoing the screening was voluntary, but Samura said he chose to do so out of curiosity.

“I could have just come throughout without any screening. That is how scary it is,” he said. “They asked for various details, about the symptoms, whether you experienced any of the symptoms, did you experience headaches, vomiting and things like that, and then they did my temperature using the normal equipment that you put in someone’s ear.

“My temperature was fine but there were things that I was telling the lady who was screening me and she was clearly saying: ‘I am learning from you’”.

Port of entry Ebola health assessment form. See the full version here Photograph: Katharine Duncan

ReGina Jane Jere, who travels frequently between Africa and her home in London, said she had noticed little discernible difference during her arrival (video) – apart from the presence of a sign.

“I wasn’t stopped. I wasn’t asked any questions. I wasn’t asked where I had come from,” said Jere, who had travelled from Gambia via Dakar and Brussels.

“There was a hand sanitiser as you walk in and I did use it, and there is a sign which is not highly visible which says ‘medical check’, which I have not seen before, so at least there is a sign. Maybe it is to check people. I don’t know.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ReGina Jane Jere tells Ben Quinn about her Ebola screening experiences at Heathrow and in Gambia

“I travelled to [the capital of Gambia] Banjul on Friday and as I walked into the airport terminal everyone was actually screened and somehow I felt really quite comfortable that I was screened and I was going into a country that was doing that.”