The British nurse being treated for Ebola is now in a critical condition after her health "gradually deteriorated" in hospital.
Pauline Cafferkey, a Scottish NHS
nurse, caught the deadly virus while volunteering in a government-funded
clinic in Sierra Leone, despite the use of protective equipment and strict
infection controls.
She became the first person to be
diagnosed with Ebola in the UK on Monday after she returned to Glasgow,
sparking an operation to trace other passengers on her flights.
The 39-year-old is being treated at the
Royal Free Hospital in London. It houses the UK's specialist treatment centre
for the disease, which has killed almost 8,000 people worldwide.
A brief statement on the hospital's
website today said: “The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is sorry to
announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated
over the past two days and is now critical.”
On Wednesday, a spokesperson had issued
happier news that Mrs Cafferkey was "sitting up in bed, talking and
reading".
She chose to receive plasma treatment,
which uses the blood of Ebola survivors, as well as an experimental anti-viral
drug that was not officially named.
Dr Michael Jacobs, infectious diseases consultant at the Royal Free, said on Wednesday: “We are giving her the very best care possible. However, the next few days will be crucial. The disease has a variable course and we will know much more in a week’s time.”
Mrs Cafferkey had worked as a nurse for
16 years before starting volunteering with Save the Children to help with the
Ebola crisis.
She flew out to Freetown in November
with four other Scottish volunteers and a contingent of 30 NHS staff from
around the UK as part of a government-funded project.
During her time in Sierra Leone's “red
zone”, she wrote a diary about her experiences for the Scotsman
newspaper, chronicling her journey from the Blantyre Health Centre in South
Lanarkshire to Ebola's front line.
She said she felt well-protected in the
“alien-type suit” of protective clothing health workers wear in 30C heat,
joking that they would “certainly be beneficial on a cold winter's night in
Scotland”.
In her third week, Mrs Cafferkey
described the harrowing experience of watching a woman die from Ebola as her
young son watched through the window, made an orphan by the virus that claimed
both parents and his sister.
“The sad thing is that this is a
regular occurrence and we see and hear of whole families being wiped out by
this awful disease,” she wrote.
Despite the sorrow, she said seeing
survivors be discharged back into the outside world with celebratory singing
and dancing made the work worthwhile.
"It helps us remember the good
work we are doing and the reason we are all here," she wrote.
Save the Children said almost 200 people
had been treated for Ebola at the Kerry Town Treatment Centre, which opened in
November and has 80 beds.
One of Mrs Cafferkey's colleagues, who
sat next to her on the flight home, said he and other medical workers had felt
protected from infection.
Dr Martin Deahl told Sky News the group
had 10 days of army training in York, which left them “feeling totally
confident and safe”.
There was “a bit of a reunion” between
NHS volunteers when they met at Freetown airport for the flight home from
Sierra Leone, he said, and “everybody sat next to everybody else” as they
shared their experiences.
“I would bet anything that she caught
this in the community and not in the treatment centre. We had absolute
confidence in the equipment and in our training,” he added.
“I cannot see, if you followed the
procedures and the protocols properly, I cannot see any way that someone could
be contaminated.”
Dr Deahl raised doubts about Britain's
"disorganised" screening measures for Ebola after it emerged Mrs
Cafferkey was cleared to fly home to Glasgow despite telling medics she feared
she had symptoms.
While waiting for a connecting flight
to Glasgow she raised fears about her condition and was tested a further six
times in the space of 30 minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment