UK nurse diagnosed with Ebola hours after returning from Africa

A Scottish nurse is being treated in an isolation unit in Glasgow after being diagnosed with the Ebola virus hours after arriving home from west Africa via a British Airways flight from Heathrow.

The healthcare worker was admitted to Gartnavel hospital after feeling unwell with a fever at 7.50am on Monday morning, having flown into the city at 11.30pm on Sunday following two months working as a volunteer in Sierra Leone to help combat the epidemic.

It is the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed on UK soil.

Another person was undergoing tests for the Ebola in Cornwall, England and was being treated in an isolation unit, a statement from Public Health England said. The results of that test would take at least 24 hours, the statement said.

Health experts treating the nurse in Glasgow said she was “quite stable” and showing few signs causing clinical concern, raising hopes she will survive the disease.

She had been volunteering at a newly built hospital at Kerry Town in Sierra Leone run by the charity Save the Children since November 23rd. The charity said last night she had asked not to be named.

Urgent steps were being taken last night by officials with Health Protection Scotland and Public Health England to trace scores of passengers on the nurse’s Royal Air Maroc flight into the UK from Casablanca in Morocco, and the 71 passengers on her internal British Airways connection – BA 1478 – from Heathrow to Glasgow on Sunday night.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister and previously Scottish health secretary, said on Monday evening the search for passengers "was very much a precautionary measure". The nurse, who is believed to be at the early stages of the infection, had been cleared by screening in Sierra Leone and at Heathrow at the weekend.

“The risk to other people as a result of this Ebola case is deemed to be extremely low,” said Ms Sturgeon. “Given the early stage of diagnosis, the patient was showing no signs of the symptoms which lead to transmission (of the virus) to other people.” She said the risk to the general public was “extremely low to the point of negligible” and added: “There’s no reason for the wider public in Scotland to be at all concerned.”

Under an agreed protocol between all the UK's health authorities, urgent preparations were also being made to transfer the nurse to the UK's main Ebola treatment centre at the Royal Free hospital in London, where the British nurse William Pooley was successfully treated after contracting Ebola in Sierra Leone last year. Scotland has no dedicated facilities for treating the disease.

Since this Ebola outbreak began in December 2013 in the west African country of Guinea, there have been nearly 20,000 cases of the disease and more than 7,500 deaths, centred in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The nurse had contacted an NHS helpline from home after feeling unwell with a fever, one of the first symptoms of the disease, early on Monday morning. Ms Sturgeon said she was then picked up from home by a specialist ambulance, and was immediately admitted into the Brownlee infectious diseases unit at Gartnavel.

Ebola symptoms can take up to 21 days to show, but more normally five to seven days. The Ebola virus is transmitted in the bodily fluids of people seriously ill with the virus, who are likely to be vomiting, bleeding or have diarrhoea, but there is no evidence that the virus is airborne.

The nurse’s partner is thought to be the only other person who has been in contact with her since she arrived home, and is now being screened by medical staff.

No cure

Almost all the health workers who have contracted Ebola in west Africa and who got early treatment have survived, including Ian Crozier, a World Health Organisation doctor, who became so ill he ended up on life support at a hospital in the US.

Not only did Crozier have state-of-the-art medical support with dialysis machines used when he developed renal problems, he also had a donation of plasma packed with Ebola antibodies from Pooley, who contracted the virus weeks before at the same hospital in Kenema, in Sierra Leone.

There is no cure for Ebola but the survival rate is about 50 per cent if patients are quickly treated with hydration, anti-malarial drugs and antibiotics.

During the course of the disease, patients can lose up to 10 litres of liquid a day from diarrhoea and vomiting and if they don’t develop sufficient numbers of antibodies quickly enough the virus will attack their internal organs making survival challenging. Statistically in this outbreak, the chances of survival are much higher for those who have been treated in a US or European facility.

Ms Sturgeon had earlier spoken to British prime minister David Cameron to discuss the case. Both governments had convened their emergency response committees, with UK health secretary Jeremy Hunt chairing a Cobra meeting at Downing Street.

A No 10 spokesman said Mr Cameron had telephoned Ms Sturgeon regarding the case, stressing that the UK government stood ready to assist “in any way possible”, and confirmed that the strictest procedures possible were being followed.

Dr Alisdair MacConacchie, a consultant in infectious diseases for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Consultant, who has been treating the patient, said she had had no contact with other parts of the NHS or any accident and emergency facility.

“The patient identified themselves as having a fever in the early hours of this morning and contacted the NHS,” he said. “She was transferred to the Brownlee centre using a specialist ambulance service and is being managed in an isolation facility by staff who are comfortable managing patients in such situations. She herself is quite stable and not showing any great clinical concern at the minute.”

Asked about the patient’s prospects, he said that being clinically stable at this stage “should translate into a good prognosis”.

Agencies