British Ebola patient discharged from hospital after ZMapp treatment

A British man who contracted Ebola in west Africa has been discharged after successful treatment with the experimental ZMapp drug, the Royal Free Hospital in London said yesterday.

William Pooley (29), was treated in a special isolation unit after contracting the deadly disease in August when working as a volunteer nurse in Sierra Leone.

“Following 10 days of successful treatment in the high-level isolation unit – the only one in the UK – Mr Pooley is being discharged from the Royal Free Hospital today,” the hospital said in a statement on its website. “He was flown to the hospital on Sunday, 24 August, 2014 and was treated with the experimental drug ZMapp,” it added.

Pooley later told reporters at a news conference he thought he had been fortunate. “I was very lucky in several ways,” he said. “Firstly in the standard of care that I received, which is a world apart from what people are receiving in west Africa at the moment despite a lot of organisations’ best efforts.

Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organisation has said that more than 1,900 people have died in the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, marking a major acceleration in fatalities from 1,500 last week. Margaret Chan told a news conference in Washington that 3,500 confirmed or probable cases have been reported as of this week. – Reuters