Skripals’ long-term health uncertain

London: The doctors who treated a Russian former spy and his daughter after they were poisoned with a nerve agent in Britain say they don’t know what the pair’s long-term health outlook is – and initially feared the incident could have been much worse.

Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia’s military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain, and daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury on March 4.

Staff at Salisbury hospital, where they were treated, told the BBC that some started to wonder whether they too would fall victim to the nerve agent.

Asked about the long term impact of the poisoning on the Skripals health, the hospital’s medical director, Christine Blanshard, said the prognosis was uncertain.

“The honest answer is we don’t know,” she said, according to extracts of an interview released by the BBC’s Newsnight program.

Britain has said that it is very likely that Moscow was responsible for the poison attack on the Skripals, and western governments, including the United States, have told more than 100 Russian diplomats to leave.

Russia has denied any involvement in the poisoning and retaliated in kind.

Yulia Skripal spoke to Reuters last week, saying her recovery had been “slow and extremely painful” and that she was lucky to have survived.