The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children is to hold an emergency meeting with the Minister for Health on preparations to deal with a potential outbreak of Ebola in Ireland.

According to the committee's chairman, Fine Gael TD, Jerry Buttimer, following the first diagnosis of Ebola in Europe and the first death from the disease in the US, ‘people are naturally apprehensive about the possible spread of this virus'.

Ebola virus disease is a severe and often fatal illness. It is initially transmitted to humans from wild animals, but human-to-human transmission can then occur as a result of direct contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, or indirect contact with environments that have been contaminated with these fluids.

Symptoms include the sudden onset of fever, headache, sore throat, muscle pain and weakness. This is then followed by diarrhoea, vomiting, rash and impaired liver and kidney function. Internal and external bleeding, including bleeding from the eyes, can also occur.

Those affected require intensive care and there is currently no treatment or vaccine available. Where an outbreak occurs, the case fatality rate can reach 90%.

More than 4,400 cases of the disease have been reported in west Africa in recent months and at least 2,300 people have died.

"It is important that people's fears about a potential outbreak of the virus are allayed and calmed. Therefore, the committee will hold an emergency meeting with Minister Leo Varadkar and the Chief Medical Officer to discuss the preparations that are being put in place in Ireland to deal with any threat from the disease and to ensure the proper health infrastructure is ready to treat an outbreak of the virus here," Deputy Buttimer said.

The meeting is due to take place on Thursday, October 16.