British nurse to be treated with Ebola survivor’s blood

The British nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone has agreed to be treated with an experimental anti-viral drug and blood from a survivor of the virus, her doctor has said.

Pauline Cafferkey, a public health nurse at Blantyre Health Centre in South Lanarkshire, is receiving specialist treatment via a quarantine tent at the Royal Free Hospital in north London after initially flying home from Heathrow to Glasgow.

Dr Michael Jacobs said Ms Cafferkey was being treated with convalescent plasma taken from the blood of a recovered patient and an experimental anti-viral drug which is "not proven to work."

But he said the hospital was unable to obtain ZMapp, the drug used to treat fellow British volunteer nurse William Pooley, who recovered, because "there is none in the world at the moment".

Describing the patient’s condition, Dr Jacobs said: “She is sitting up and talking. She is able to read. She’s been eating a bit, drinking and she’s been in communication with her family, which has been really nice.

“She’s as well as we can hope for at this stage of the illness.

Dr Jacobs said the treatment had “gone very smoothly, no side-effects at all” and that the next few days were “critical”.

“At the moment, we don’t know what the best treatment strategies are,” he said. “That’s why we’re calling them experimental treatments...As we’ve explained to Pauline, we can’t be as confident as we would like.”

Mrs Cafferkey, 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.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We have been clear - this person was tested as part of the screening process at Heathrow and, as with all health workers, she was advised to contact PHE (Public Health England) if she had any concerns. She did this, while still at Heathrow, and went through a further six temperature checks.

“Her temperature was in acceptable ranges and she was cleared for onward travel, with the advice that if she did start to feel unwell, she should contact health authorities.”

PA