UK military health care worker tests positive for Ebola

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UK military health care worker tests positive for Ebola

Kerry
The military health worker is believed to have been stationed at a facility in Kerry Town, Sierra Leone.
Image: FRANCISCO LEONG/AFP/Getty Images

LONDON — A British military health care worker in Sierra Leone has tested positive for Ebola.

The unidentified individual is reportedly a woman who was working at an Ebola treatment centre in Kerry Town, southwest of the capital Freetown. She is receiving care, while a decision is made on whether or not she will be evacuated to the UK, according to multiple reports.

“A clinical decision on whether the individual will be medically evacuated to the UK for treatment will be taken in due course,” a Public Health England spokesperson told the London Evening Standard. “An investigation into how the military worker was exposed to the virus is currently under way and tracing of individuals in recent contact with the diagnosed worker is being undertaken.”

The Kerry Town centre was opened by Save The Children last November, and can treat up to 100 patients. More than 200 “frontline medical staff” work there.

This is the third British citizen to be tested positive for Ebola. Nurses Will Pooley and Pauline Cafferkey were infected with the virus in West Africa last year, but both eventually made full recoveries.

“The UK has robust, well-developed and well-tested systems for managing Ebola, and the overall risk to the public in the UK continues to be very low,” Public Health England added.

Nearly 10,000 people are thought to have died from the current Ebola outbreak.

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