Scottish nurse who contracted Ebola is back in hospital for a third time
LONDON — A nurse who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone in 2014 is back in hospital again, according to a statement from the NHS on Tuesday morning.
“Under routine monitoring by the Infectious Diseases Unit Pauline Cafferkey has been admitted to hospital for further investigations,” the emailed statement from NHS Greater Glasgow and Cylde says. They did not give any information about the reasons for readmitting her.
Pauline Cafferkey was also readmitted to hospital in October with an unusual late complication to the virus. However, after her condition deteriorated they said she was again suffering from Ebola.
The nurse, who was working for Save the Children in Kerry Town when she first contracted the virus, was treated at the Royal Free Hospital in London in October before being transferred to a hospital in Glasgow.
The World Health Organization says it’s possible in rare instances for patients who survived Ebola to develop the lethal disease again, when the virus lingering in the body starts to replicate at high levels.
Since Ebola broke out in Guinea’s forest region last year, it’s killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa, in the largest recorded outbreak of the virus. Although the WHO declared the epidemic over earlier this year, there are still lasting effects across the region.
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