The UK is to introduce "enhanced screening" for Ebola for arrivals from affected countries.
Enhanced screening for Ebola will be introduced at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and Eurostar terminals following advice from the Chief Medical Officer, Downing Street has said.
The screening will be introduced for passengers travelling from the affected regions - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - to give the UK an additional level of protection from the deadly virus.
The tests will involve assessing passengers' recent travel history, who they have been in contact with and onward travel arrangements as well as a possible medical assessment conducted by trained medical personnel.
Ministers had ruled out introducing screening at UK airports, pointing out that government policy was in line with advice from the World Health Organisation.
A statement on the Department of Health's website also said: "Entry screening in the UK is not recommended by the World Health Organisation, and there are no plans to introduce entry screening for Ebola in the UK."
But in a statement, Number 10 said advice from the chief medical officer was that checks on arrivals would "offer an additional level of protection to the UK".
Earlier this week a Spanish nurse became the first person to contract the deadly virus outside of West Africa.
People leaving areas affected by the outbreak have been subject to checks for some weeks, although people do not become infectious until they display symptoms.
UK hospitals are on standby to deal with a potential Ebola outbreak and the Royal Free Hospital in London, where nurse William Pooley was treated after contracting the disease in Sierra Leone, has sent specialist equipment to hospitals in Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield.
A Downing Street spokeswoman added that screenings had already been in place in the West African nations impacted by the disease, and measures going beyond enhanced screening will be "kept under review."
"As the Chief Medical Officer's advice makes clear, these measures will help to improve our ability to detect and isolate Ebola cases. However, it is important to stress that given the nature of this disease, no system could offer 100 per cent protection from non-symptomatic cases," she added.
She also stressed that the overall risk to the public in the UK is "very low" and the country benefits from some of the best public health protection systems in the world.
"Contingency planning is also under way including a national exercise and wider resilience training to ensure the UK is fully prepared," she said.
She said: "Although the risk to the UK remains low, in view of the concern about the growing number of cases, it is right to consider what further measures could be taken, to ensure that any potential cases arriving in the UK are identified as quickly as possible."
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