An ambulance pulls away from The Royal Free Hospital in London, where Pauline Cafferkey is in isolation after contracting the Ebola virus. Photo: AFP
London: A British health worker who is being treated for Ebola in a London hospital is now in critical condition, her doctors said Saturday.
The patient, Pauline Cafferkey, a nurse from Scotland who had volunteered with the charity Save the Children to care for Ebola victims in Sierra Leone, returned to Glasgow, Scotland, last Sunday. She was hospitalised with a fever and given an Ebola diagnosis Monday, then transferred to an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Ms Cafferkey, who works for Britain’s state-run National Health Service (NHS), had been volunteering at a British-built treatment centre in Sierra Leone when she contracted the deadly virus.
Initial reports suggested that her condition was stable, but the hospital said in a statement released on Saturday that it was “sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days”.
Michael Jacobs, infectious diseases consultant at the hospital, warned that “Ebola runs a very variable course and the next few days are going to be very critical”.
The case of Ms Cafferkey, who had flown via Casablanca, Morocco, and London Heathrow Airport to Glasgow, has raised questions about the effectiveness of the Ebola screening at Heathrow, a global air hub. The nurse had told officials at the airport that she believed she was developing a fever, and her temperature was taken seven times over a short period, the BBC reported. But when it was normal, she was allowed to continue her travel.
Ms Cafferkey, whose infection is the second known case of Ebola in Britain, is being treated with an experimental anti-viral drug and blood from Ebola survivors. The previous patient, William Pooley, also a nurse, recovered. He had been treated in the same hospital with another experimental drug, ZMapp, that has also shown promise in treating some patients. But there is a global shortage of ZMapp, and none was available for Ms Cafferkey.
News of her deteriorating condition came as a South Korean health worker who had come into contact with an Ebola victim in Sierra Leone five days ago was reportedly being monitored at a Berlin hospital for symptoms. No details about the Korean’s identity have been released. Since an Ebola outbreak began in West Africa a year ago, there have been almost 20,000 cases and more than 7800 deaths, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
New York Times, AFP