Ebola nurse condition improves

A SCOTS nurse being treated for ebola for a second time has improved and is now in a ‘serious but stable’ condition, doctors revealed yesterday.

Pauline Cafferkey, 39, was admitted to the high level isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London more than a week ago after becoming unwell in Glasgow.

A statement from the hospital said: ‘We are able to announce that Pauline Cafferkey’s condition has improved to serious but stable.’

Last Wednesday, doctors had said Miss Cafferkey’s health had deteriorated and she was in a ‘critically ill’ condition.

On becoming ill again, Miss Cafferkey was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow before she was flown to the Royal Free in the early hours of October 9.

Miss Cafferkey’s family claim a chance to spot she was ill with ebola again was missed when she was sent home from an out-of-hours clinic in Glasgow on October 5.

A total of 58 close contacts of the nurse have been identified, with 40 of those offered vaccinations as a precaution.

The nurse, from Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, contracted ebola last year while working as a nurse at the Save the Children treatment centre in Sierra Leone’s Kerry Town. She was diagnosed on her return to Glasgow in December and spent almost a month in the isolation unit at the Royal Free before she was discharged in late January.

Bodily tissues can harbour the ebola infection for months after the person appears to have fully recovered.

Dr Ben Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading, said: ‘We still don’t know exactly what complications Pauline is experiencing but this is encouraging news.

‘She is not out of the woods yet but her fighting spirit, combined with her body’s knowledge of ebola, gives me great hope for her recovery. Fingers crossed she pulls through.’