U.K Ebola Patient in Worse Condition

 

NHS nurse who returned to U.K with the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease is now in worse condition. A statement from the Royal Free Hospital where she was flown to after the diagnosis in Glasgow confirmed this.

The Royal Free Hospital said it was "sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days".

The patient - understood to have been volunteering for Save The Children - was admitted to hospital early on Monday morning after feeling unwell and was placed into isolation at 7.50am.

At the Royal Free Hospital, she was treated with an experimental anti-viral drug and blood from disease survivors. These appeared to be less effective to curing the disease.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt also expressed his concern, adding: "I know Dr Mike Jacobs and his team at the Royal Free Hospital are working tirelessly to provide her with the best possible care."

Microbiologist Professor Hugh Pennington said patients responded to Ebola treatment differently.

"Some patients with Ebola get sick and then they get better. Not everybody dies," he said.

For this reason, he said, it was "very difficult" to tell how effective treatments would be - especially when "relatively small numbers of people are being treated with these various experimental approaches".

Ms Cafferkey flew home through Cassablanca, through Heathrow Airport. Her temperatures were taken several times within the intervals of 30 minutes at the airport before she was allowed to fly to Scotland. At the sudden change of her temperature at home, she was isolated and diagnosed at Glasgow's Gartnavel Hospital. She tested positive to the Ebola Virus Disease.

 

She was then transferred to the Royal Free's specialist treatment centre.

Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, such as blood, vomit or faeces.

The virus has killed more than 7,800 people, almost all in West Africa, since it broke out a year ago.

The World Health Organization says the number of people infected by the disease in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea has now passed 20,000.

Nigeria and Senegal have been able to contain the spread of the disease through meticulous contact tracing and isolations.