[ 2014-12-30 ]

Ebola case confirmed in Britain
A health worker was in a hospital isolation unit
last night after ebola was diagnosed for the first
time on British soil.
The woman, who had been working to combat the
disease in West Africa, returned from Sierra Leone
on Sunday night. After travelling via Casablanca
to Heathrow, she took an internal flight to
Glasgow, where she began to feel unwell.
She was placed in isolation at 7.50am. The
patient, who has not been named, spent last night
at the specialist Brownlee Unit for Infectious
Diseases on the Gartnavel Hospital campus in
Glasgow.
Under UK and Scottish protocol, she will be
transferred to the high-level isolation unit at
the Royal Free Hospital in north London “as soon
as possible”. She will be treated there by Dr
Mike Jacobs, one of the leading experts in the
field.
There is still no vaccine against ebola. The total
number of cases worldwide is more than 19,340 and
7,580 deaths have been reported in six countries
— Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the US
and Mali.
Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for
England, has said that she estimates that there
could be “a handful of cases” of ebola in
Britain in the coming months. Save the Children
confirmed that the woman was an NHS nurse who
worked at the charity’s ebola hospital in Kerry
Town, near Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown.
The Scottish government and Health Protection
England said that “all possible contacts” with
the patient were being investigated and anyone
thought to be at risk would be contacted and
closely monitored.
The woman was a passenger on flight AT0800 from
Casablanca to London, and transferred at Heathrow
to flight BA1478 for Glasgow. Health officials are
tracing the 71 other people who were on the
British Airways flight from London to Glasgow.
A Holyrood spokesman said: “Having been
diagnosed in the very early stages of the illness,
the risk to others is considered extremely
low.”
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister,
confirmed that the patient had been screened for
ebola on leaving Sierra Leone and arriving at
Heathrow. She said that apart from passengers on
the aircraft and hospital staff, the woman was
thought to have had contact only with one other
person.
Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of
bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, said:
“People travel when they aren’t yet ill, then
they get a temperature when they’re back home.
Unfortunately there is a higher risk for the
people looking after the patients because they are
vomiting and the virus can be transmitted through
the vomit.”
David Cameron said on Twitter that he and Ms
Sturgeon would ensure that everything would be
done to support the patient and protect public
health.
Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, chaired a
meeting of the Whitehall Cobra contingencies
committee and said that there would be a review of
the procedures adopted by NHS staff and other
officials working in Sierra Leone.
Although the woman is the first to receive a
diagnosis of the disease on British soil, a
British nurse, William Pooley, contracted the
virus in Sierra Leone. After being treated in
Britain with an experimental drug, he returned to
the country to work.

Source - The Times(UK)

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