UK doctors say nurse suffering Ebola relapse has improved

Doctors treating a Scottish nurse suffering from a rare relapse of Ebola say she has improved significantly and are hopeful she will make a full recovery.

The 39-year-old from Glasgow has been receiving treatment in the Royal Free Hospital’s high level isolation unit since October 9 and was at one point in a critical condition.

Pauline Cafferkey is now able to talk to staff at the Royal Free Hospital in London after a “significant improvement” since last week, when she almost died.

Pauline Cafferkey has finally shown “significant improvement” since being confined to the Royal Free Hospital in London earlier this month.

Although the risk of sexually transmitted Ebola infection is low, it’s clearly not zero.

It emerged Ms Cafferkey visited Mossneuk Primary School in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, on Monday last week to thank children for their fund-raising efforts, before she was readmitted to hospital with the complication.

She was the first person to have been diagnosed with Ebola on British soil when she contracted the disease in December 2014 and spent several weeks at the Royal Free before making a recovery and being discharged.

Her condition deteriorated and last Wednesday the hospital announced that she was critically ill. By saying critically ill, doctors meant she was at imminent risk of losing her life. Her condition was later updated as “serious but stable” as doctors battled to reduce the risk to life.

It said she was unable to use the standard protective goggles because she could not get them to fit properly.

“That’s why we’re thrilled to be having this press conference”.

A total of 65 close contacts of the nurse have been identified, with 40 of those offered vaccinations as a precaution. Based on this new case, they’re recommending that Ebola survivors either abstain from sex or use condoms for at least six months, or until they test negative for the disease twice.

“It is clear that there is a few learning still to be done with regard to Ebola, and Health Protection Scotland will work with national and worldwide partners to play whatever part it can in that work”. “We have not before seen a re-emergence of the virus in the form of meningitis”.

Indeed, if Ebola is transmitted sexually even after the virus has been flushed out of the rest of the body (apart from the testies), then we should have seen more cases considering the number of surviving males.