Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey in ‘critical’ condition

The condition of British nurse Pauline Cafferkey who was diagnosed with Ebola has deteriorated and is now critical, the Royal Free Hospital in north London said in a statement on Saturday.

Ms Cafferkey, a Scottish public health nurse who had been volunteering in West Africa, was diagnosed with the deadly virus after returning to Glasgow from Sierra Leone via Casablanca in Morocco.

A brief statement on the hospital’s website said: “The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days and is now critical.”

Ms Cafferkey had begun specialist treatment via a quarantine tent at the Royal Free Hospital after initially flying home from Heathrow to Glasgow. The treatment involved convalescent plasma taken from the blood of a recovered patient and an experimental anti-viral drug which is “not proven to work.”

Ms Cafferkey, a public health nurse at Blantyre Health Centre in South Lanarkshire from Glasgow, was part of a 30-strong team of medical volunteers deployed to Africa by the UK Government last month and had been working with Save the Children at the Ebola Treatment Centre in Kerry Town, Sierra Leone.

She was initially placed in isolation at a Glasgow hospital early on Monday after feeling feverish, before being transferred south on an RAF C-130 Hercules plane.

The healthcare worker had flown from Sierra Leone via Morocco to Heathrow, where she was considered a high risk because of the nature of her work but showed no symptoms during screening and a temperature check.

However, while waiting for a connecting flight to Glasgow she raised fears about her temperature and was tested a further six times in the space of 30 minutes.

Despite her concerns, she was given the all-clear and flew on to Scotland where, after taking a taxi home, she later developed a fever and raised the alarm.

Britain’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, said questions have been raised about the airport screening procedure for Ebola but insisted that the nurse’s temperature was checked.

“We regularly keep under review what we are doing because this is a new process,” she told ITV. “Clearly queuing and things like that are unacceptable and we will review. But we will let people who are well travel because they will not infect the public.”

PA