British military medic declared free of Ebola

British military healthcare worker Anna Cross (25), who became infected with Ebola while working in Sierra Leone, has been declared free of the virus and has been discharged, London's Royal Free Hospital said.

Corporal Anna Cross was discharged after being the first patient in the world to be treated with an experimental drug.

Ms Cross chose to be given the drug MIL 77 at the hospital and has now been declared free of the deadly virus.

Ms Cross, from Cambridge, joined the army reserves in 2013 as a staff nurse and volunteered to help care for Ebola patients in the west African country, arriving there in February.

She was evacuated back to the UK in an RAF plane on March 12th, after becoming the third Briton to test positive for Ebola.

Ms Cross told a press conference she had been cared for at the hospital by an “absolutely incredible bunch of clinicians.Thanks to them I’m alive”.

Sierra Leone shutdown

Sierra Leone’s six million people are being confined to their homes for three days from today as the west African nation resorts again to a sweeping shutdown in a final bid to eliminate Ebola.

Thousands of teams will fan out around the country, knocking on doors to remind people how Ebola is spread and how to prevent it. In the regions around the capital, Freetown, and in the north - health workers will also search for Ebola cases.

Alfred Palo Conteh, the head of Sierra Leone's Ebola response, said a major goal of the campaign is to fight complacency, more than a year after the outbreak was declared in west Africa.

Ebola has infected nearly 12,000 people in Sierra Leone.

PA