Ebola case confirmed in Glasgow

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Ebola case confirmed in Glasgow

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Health workers wearing Ebola protective gear at a treatment center on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, on Nov. 28, 2014.
Image: Press Association via AP Images/Associated Press

A health care worker who returned to Glasgow from Sierra Leone on a British Airways flight less than 24 hours ago has Ebola, Scottish officials confirmed on Monday.

The patient, who was working with Ebola victims in West Africa, took a flight from Sierra Leone late Sunday night via Casablanca, Morocco and London Heathrow, arriving into Glasgow Airport on a British Airways plane around 11:30 p.m. local time. The person was admitted to the hospital about eight hours later after showing symptoms of the virus.

Scotland authorities have activated the country’s infectious disease procedures and is currently working to contact every person the Ebola-infected patient came in contact with during transit. However, officials said the patient was diagnosed in the very early stages of the illness, and the risk to others is considered extremely low.

“Scotland has been preparing for this possibility from the beginning of the outbreak in West Africa,” First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in a statement. “I am confident that we are well-prepared.”

The patient will soon be transferred to a high-level isolation unit (similar to the one in the photo below) in London’s Royal Free hospital, a protocol that was put in place before this Ebola case.

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A general view of a High Level Isolation Unit at the Royal Free hospital on Aug. 12, 2014 in London, England.

Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

In September, British Ebola survivor William Pooley was treated at the same London hospital, where he said he received “world-class care.” Pooley, a nurse who contracted the disease while patients in Sierra Leone, is the UK’s only other confirmed case of Ebola. He returned to West Africa after he recovered.

Since the Ebola outbreak began a year ago in West Africa, there have been nearly 20,000 cases and more than 7,500 deaths, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

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