Repatriated to France on September 19, the Médecins Sans Frontières nurse is now cured, the Ministry of Health announced today.
First case of ebola on French territory, the young volunteer nurse of the organization of Doctors Without Borders “is now cured and has left the Bégin hospital” located in Saint-Mandé in the Paris region, indicates the Ministry of Health in a statement.
“We share the joy of our colleague’s family. This is great news and a huge relief for all MSF. We would like to salute the work and mobilization of the teams from Bégin hospital who took charge of her on her return to France, ”said Stéphane Roques, MSF’s director general.
Contaminated by the ebola virus during a humanitarian mission in Liberia, the nurse was repatriated two weeks ago. Hospitalized in a military establishment, the nurse was able to benefit from one of the three experimental treatments authorized for the occasion by ministerial order by way of derogation (Favipiravir, TKM-100-802, ZMapp). According to AFP, which quotes the Japanese manufacturer Toyama Chemical (a subsidiary of Fujifilm) of the antiviral Avigan (favipiravir), the nurse would have been treated by this last product.
In her press release, the Minister of Health Marisol Touraine said she was “very happy with this favorable development and once again salutes the commitment and courage of this young woman, as well as the mobilization of all those who are fighting on the front of the terrible ebola in West Africa ”.
Other volunteers are at risk of being affected …
For his part, Stéphane Roques of MSF has “a thought for the other members of MSF staff who contracted the Ebola virus since the start of our intervention and more particularly for those who died as well as their relatives”.
Nearly 3,000 MSF, expatriates and national staff, remain mobilized against Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. “In view of the speed with which the virus is spreading, we must unfortunately consider the possibility that other personnel from the ministries of health, other MSF or even members of their families contract Ebola. For the good of all the populations in the most affected countries, MSF can only urge once again the States which have the means to act immediately in order to contain the epidemic ”, recalls the director general of the. NGO.
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