Topeka ? State health officials told a legislative panel Friday that the risk of the deadly ebola virus spreading to Kansas is extremely low. But in the unlikely event that it does, the state has a plan in place to deal with it.

“The level of anxiety is perhaps not matched by the actual level of risk,” state epidemiologist Charlie Hunt said during a briefing to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Kansas Security. “The reality is that there’s not a lot of risk to the general public.”

Still, Hunt said, officials at KDHE began working with local health departments, the medical community and numerous other groups in August, more than a month before the first ebola case in the United States was reported, to develop a plan for how to respond if a case actually occurs in Kansas.

Hunt said the plan calls for voluntary 21-day isolation and restriction of movement for people at risk of being exposed while they undergo daily monitoring for symptoms of the virus. He said that’s the maximum length of time it takes for the virus to start producing symptoms, although symptoms usually develop in eight to 10 days.

That procedure also applies to most health care workers who would treat ebola patients, unless the facility where they work uses what are called “Tier 1 level personal protective equipment,” which is specially designed suits and other equipment that protects against exposure to the virus.

The plan does not call for mandatory isolation or quarantines, although state law does give local health departments and the secretary of KDHE to take those measures if they determine it’s necessary.

Other elements of the plan include procedures for disposing of medical waste from ebola patients as well as protocols for transporting patients infected with the disease.

The biggest risk, Hunt said, is from people returning to the United States from one of the countries in east Africa where a severe outbreak has erupted. There is also a smaller risk from any health care workers who have treated ebola patients.

He said the virus is mainly transmitted through bodily fluids, so the people at risk are only those who have had close bodily contact with ebola victims.

So far, only four cases of ebola have been diagnosed in the U.S. The first occurred Sept. 30 in Dallas when Thomas Eric Duncan, who had recently been in east Africa, developed symptoms after he arrived in Texas. He later died of the disease.

Two health care workers who treated Duncan, as well as a doctor who had treated victims in Africa, also contracted the disease, but they have all been cured.