A case of Ebola in the UK. Scottish nurse who treated patients infected with the Ebola virusin Sierra Leone contracted hemorrhagic fever. The National Health Service (NHS), the UK’s national health service, reports the information. This is the first Ebola case to hit the UK since the virus emerged in West Africa, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
According to the NHS, the nurse returned from Sierra Leone on December 28, passing through Casablanca in Morocco and London Heathrow airport. She finally landed at Glasgow Airport in Scotland on a British Airways flight. On the morning of December 29, the woman felt unwell and began to experience symptoms. She was taken care of and placed in isolation, as the procedure requires, in the infectious diseases department at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow.
Currently in treatment, the patient would not have infected other people, reassure the Scottish health authorities. The virus was indeed diagnosed “at a very advanced stage of the disease”, reducing the risk of contamination to an “extremely low” level.
More than 20,000 cases of Ebola
The authorities are nevertheless looking for all people who may have been in contact with the nurse at the time when she was showing symptoms of the virus. If necessary, they will be subject to special monitoring.
The patient will be transferred “as soon as possible” to London to a specialized unit at the Royal Free Hospital, the Scottish government added.
The death toll of Ebola victims has now passed the 20,000 case mark according to the WHO. 7,842 deaths have been recorded to date, mainly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
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