Ebola patient at London hospital is voluntary nurse

 
Ebola nurse: Pauline Cafferkey (Picture: EPA)
Standard Reporter30 December 2014

A woman receiving treatment for Ebola at a north London hospital has been identified as voluntary nurse Pauline Cafferkey.

Mrs Cafferkey, a public health nurse at Blantyre Health Centre in South Lanarkshire, was found to have the virus after returning to Glasgow from Sierra Leone.

She was part of a 30-strong team of medical volunteers deployed to Africa by the UK Government last month.

Dr Martin Deahl said he sat next to Mrs Cafferkey on a flight from West Africa to Scotland on Sunday night. She was placed in isolation at a Glasgow hospital early yesterday morning after feeling feverish.

She arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in north London today to receive specialist treatment after being transferred on a military-style plane in a quarantine tent.

She wrote movingly about her four weeks in Sierra Leone in a diary for the Scotsman newspaper, describing how she had to tell a young boy his mother had died from the virus. His father and sister also died from Ebola, she discovered.

"The sad thing is that this is a regular occurrence and we see and hear of whole families being wiped out by this awful disease," she wrote.

Passengers who were on flights she took to the UK are now being contacted but health officials said the risk to the public is very low.

Dr Deahl told Sky News: "We had 10 days training at York given by the Army which was magnificent, and we all left feeling totally confident and safe.”

It was confirmed today that two other people who have been in West Africa are being tested for Ebola - one in Aberdeen and one in Cornwall.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the Scottish patient was another healthcare worker who had recently returned from the region but was not thought to have had any direct contact with people infected with Ebola, with the case being described as "low probability".

The patient had been staying at a youth hostel in the Highlands and was being transferred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for tests.

The Cornish patient has been placed in isolation at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske, Truro.

It is understood the patient, who attended the hospital this morning, recently returned from a country affected by an outbreak of the virus.

In a joint statement, the hospital and Public Health England said: "A patient has been admitted to Royal Cornwall Hospital and is currently undergoing a series of tests - one of which is for Ebola.

"We do not expect the results to be known for at least 24 hours and in the meantime the patient is being looked after in isolation, following nationally-agreed guidelines and protocols to protect the health of our staff and other patients."

Mrs Cafferkey flew back to the UK via Casablanca in Morocco and London Heathrow, arriving at Glasgow Airport at about 11.30pm on Sunday on a British Airways flight.

Ms Sturgeon said the risk to the general public is "extremely low to the point of negligible".

Mrs Cafferkey had been working with Save the Children at the Ebola Treatment Centre in Kerry Town, Sierra Leone.

She is the second Briton to test positive and the first to do so on UK soil after nurse William Pooley, 29, contracted Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone in August before getting the all-clear following treatment at the Royal Free Hospital.

About 100 people have been tested for the virus in hospitals across England this year, most of whom had visited West Africa.

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