Ebola nurse Pauline in hospital for fourth time
Tests for deadly virus ‘negative’ after 40-year-old falls ill at home
EBOLA nurse Pauline Cafferkey was rushed to hospital yesterday after falling ill at home.
It is three weeks since the Scot was cleared of misconduct after allegedly allowing her temperature to be recorded wrongly during screening for the deadly disease.
She was back at work with the NHS this week, but became unwell at her home in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, yesterday morning.
It was the fourth hospitalisation for the 40-year-old, who has already fought for her life twice after becoming the only person to have had the ebola virus reactivate in her body. She was also struck down by meningitis triggered by ebola.
However, yesterday tests for the illness proved negative, although she remained in Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital last night where her condition was described as stable.
Dr Ben Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading, said: ‘Since Pauline Cafferkey is the most famous ebola sufferer in the world, the hospital were being careful.’
But he said she remains at risk of further ebola complications, adding: ‘We don’t know if Pauline Cafferkey will ever make a full recovery. The evidence is ebola is really good at this game of hide and seek.’
Miss Cafferkey was taken to hospital by ambulance with a police escort and admitted to the infectious diseases unit as a precaution while investigations were carried out. Previously the children’s nurse has made three trips for specialist treatment to the Royal Free Hospital in London, where she spent weeks in an isolation tent – an experience for which she is still receiving counselling.
A hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) heard last month that Miss Cafferkey had made a painfully slow recovery from ebola, which she most likely contracted through a faulty visor, after sacrificing her Christmas two years ago to volunteer helping ebola victims in Sierra Leone.
The NMC has come in for severe criticism after forcing her to appear before a disciplinary panel over allegations she allowed her temperature – a danger sign of ebola – to be falsely recorded on a form. Miss Cafferkey was charged with leaving Heathrow Airport’s screening area without providing the true temperature and failing to tell a doctor she had taken paracetamol.
But all charges were overturned after the NMC determined the virus had put her in a ‘diminished mental state’, which affected her ability to make rational decisions. She said afterwards she was made a ‘scapegoat’ by officials.
Last night, an NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spokesman said ‘due to Miss Cafferkey’s past medical history’ the hospital had taken ‘appropriate precautionary measures ’ as investigations were carried out. ‘We are pleased to report that tests for the ebola virus are negative,’ he said.
The spokesman added: ‘We want to repeat our previous reassurance that there is no risk to the public.’
‘Precautionary measures’