Ebola Patient Arrives At Hospital

An NHS worker who has been diagnosed with Ebola after returning to Glasgow from Sierra Leone has arrived in London for specialist treatment.

The woman, who had been working in Sierra Leone with Save the Children, has been in isolation in hospital in Glasgow since yesterday morning and is in a stable condition.

She arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in north London in an RAF truck accompanied by police cars.

She flew back to the UK via Casablanca in Morocco and London Heathrow, arriving at Glasgow Airport at around 11.30pm on Sunday on a British Airways flight.

She was admitted to hospital early yesterday morning after feeling feverish and was placed into isolation in the Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases at the city's Gartnavel Hospital at 7.50am.

She was transferred from Glasgow Airport on a military-style plane in a quarantine tent surrounded by a group of health workers in full protection suits, bound for London.

Meanwhile, two more people who have been in West Africa were being tested for Ebola, one in Scotland and one in Cornwall.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the Scottish patient was another health care worker who had recently returned from the region.

The Cornish patient has been placed in isolation at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske, Truro.

It is understood the patient, who attended the hospital this morning, recently returned from a country affected by an outbreak of the virus.

In a joint statement, the hospital and Public Health England said: A patient has been admitted to Royal Cornwall Hospital and is currently undergoing a series of tests - one of which is for Ebola.

We do not expect the results to be known for at least 24 hours and in the meantime the patient is being looked after in isolation, following nationally-agreed guidelines and protocols to protect the health of our staff and other patients.

Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust has been following national guidance around Ebola and made plans in line with advice from Public Health England and NHS England.''

It is understood the Scottish patient who is being tested had been staying at a youth hostel in the Highlands and was being transferred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Ms Sturgeon said: I should stress that, although this is another returning healthcare worker from West Africa, the patient here, as far as we are aware, has had no direct contact with people infected with Ebola, so it is a case that is being described as low probability.

But we are operating, given the seriousness of Ebola, on a highly precautionary basis and that's why this patient over the course of today will be transferred for tests.''

Around 100 have been tested for Ebola in hospitals across England this year so far.

The NHS worker is the second Briton to test positive and first to do so on UK soil.

Nurse William Pooley, 29, contracted Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone in August before getting the all-clear following treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

He returned to Sierra Leone last month to continue treating patients in an Ebola isolation unit run by UK medical staff. Most of the people tested for Ebola had visited west Africa.

Health officials are tracing the 71 people who were on the British Airways flight from London to Glasgow with the woman who has the virus and passengers on the flight from Casablanca to Heathrow.

Ms Sturgeon said the risk to the general public is extremely low to the point of negligible''.

Apart from the other passengers on the flight and hospital staff the patient is thought to have had contact with only one other person in Scotland, who is being contacted.

Ms Sturgeon said: Given the early stage of the diagnosis, the patient was displaying no symptoms of the kind that would lead to onward transmission and put other people at risk before she reported as being unwell.''

The woman had been working with Save the Children at the Ebola Treatment Centre at Kerry Town, Sierra Leone, Michael von Bertele, Save the Children humanitarian director, said: Our thoughts are with the individual, their family and colleagues at this difficult time. We wish them a speedy recovery.

Save the Children is working closely with the UK Government, Scottish Government and Public Health England to look into the circumstances surrounding the case.'' Health Protection England said the healthcare worker left Sierra Leone on Sunday and was a passenger on flight AT596 from Freetown to Casablanca, flight AT0800 from Casablanca to London, and transferred at Heathrow to flight BA1478 for onward travel to Glasgow.

It said the risk of infection to other passengers on the flights is considered extremely low but, as a precaution, it is arranging for all passengers and crew on the flight from Casablanca to Heathrow to be provided with health information and will be contacting and following up those passengers who were sitting near the affected passenger on these flights.

Paul Cosford, medical director for Public Health England, said the NHS worker with the virus, one of dozens of British volunteers helping fight the disease, was a very brave person''.

He added that the woman was admitted to hospital in the early hours of the morning, shortly after arriving home from Sierra Leone the previous evening, and she had not exhibited any severe symptoms of the disease, meaning there was a low risk of transmission to other passengers.

The most important thing to remember about Ebola is it is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids - diarrhoea, blood or vomit.

She only had a fever and when people have a fever they do not transmit the virus. We believe the risk to the public is low.''

The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust confirmed that she had arrived this morning and was being treated for Ebola at the high level isolation unit.

The Queen praised medical staff fighting the Ebola outbreak in her traditional Christmas message, saying she had been deeply touched'' by theirselflessness''.

The UK is one of a number of nations that has seen its doctors and nurses volunteer to help countries such as Sierra Leone combat the epidemic, which has claimed over 7,000 lives.

After chairing a meeting of the Whitehall Cobra contingencies committee in London yesterday following news of the Scottish case, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said there would be a review of the procedures and protocols'' adopted by NHS workers and other government staff working in Sierra Leone.

He said the Government was doing absolutely everything it needs to'' to keep the public safe and that the measures it had put in place were working well.

Professor Paul Cosford, director for health protection for Public Health England, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: It is important to understand that the way the Ebola virus is transmitted is through contact with the bodily fluids of somebody who is seriously ill... Blood or diarrhoea in particular.

This particular individual has symptoms of fever but she did not have the symptoms that make us worried about transmission before she was in the isolation facility in Glasgow.

So we are confident the risk to others is low but obviously as a precaution we are making contact with the people who were on the flight into Heathrow with her and on the flight from Heathrow to Glasgow.

We are never complacent about those things so we want to be absolutely certain those people who will naturally be concerned they may have been on the flight with this individual have contact from us to give them that reassurance.

We are making a specific effort to identify those who were sitting in the immediate vicinity on the flight so we can give them particular assurance and also on a very precautionary basis make sure they know what symptoms you would look out for if there was any concern at all and also where to contact if they have those symptoms.

But I would emphasise the risk is extremely low to anybody else outside of the hospital treating her.''