Ebola patient arrives in London

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 30 Desember 2014 | 21.24

30 December 2014 Last updated at 14:00

A health worker who was diagnosed with Ebola after returning to Scotland from Sierra Leone has arrived at a specialist treatment centre in London.

Pauline Cafferkey, who flew to Glasgow via Casablanca and London Heathrow, was taken to the Royal Free Hospital.

She is understood to have been flown to RAF Northolt in a military plane after leaving Glasgow in a convoy.

Passengers on flights she took to the UK are being traced, but officials say the risk to the public is very low.

Ms Cafferkey was part of a group of up to 50 NHS healthcare workers who returned to the UK at the weekend after volunteering in Sierra Leone.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was "doing as well as can be expected in the circumstances".

Ms Sturgeon took part in two emergency meetings on Monday - one of the Scottish Government's resilience committee, and one of the UK-wide Cobra committee, chaired by David Cameron.

She told journalists that as a precaution, Health Protection Scotland has traced and contacted, or left messages with, 63 of the 70 other passengers who were on the same flight from London to Glasgow as the patient.

Efforts to contact the remaining seven passengers will continue, according to the first minister.

Health Protection Scotland has also contacted and given advice to the one person who Ms Cafferkey came into contact with after arriving in Scotland.

There is no plan to test any of the other 70 passengers who were on the flight unless they develop symptoms.

The eight people who were in the "close contact group" seated near to the patient on the plane have all been contacted or had messages left for them.

Ms Cafferkey, an associate public health nurse at Blantyre Health Centre, South Lanarkshire, left Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow just after 03:00 GMT on Tuesday.

Two ambulances, escorted by six police cars, ferried her to Glasgow Airport, from where she was flown by a Royal Air Force Hercules aircraft to RAF Northolt in north-west London.

An air force ambulance then took Ms Cafferkey to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London.

Ambulance carrying Ebola patient

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

The BBC's Andy Moore: "She is here being treated in an isolation unit"

Ms Cafferkey, who had been working with Save the Children in Sierra Leone, arrived in Glasgow on a British Airways flight on Sunday but was placed in an isolation unit at Gartnavel Hospital on Monday morning after becoming feverish.

UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said NHS safety measures in place were working well.

Mr Hunt, who chaired an emergency Cobra meeting on Monday evening, said the government was doing "absolutely everything it needs to" to keep the public safe.

"We are also reviewing our procedures and protocols for all the other NHS workers who are working at the moment in Sierra Leone," he added.

Under UK and Scottish protocol, she was moved to the high-level isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital.

UK nurse William Pooley - who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone earlier this year - was successfully treated at the same facility.

The bed in the isolation unit

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Dr Stephen Mepham explains how the isolation unit works

Ms Sturgeon, who chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Committee on Monday, said the risk to the public was "extremely low to the point of negligible".

The first minister added that Ms Cafferkey was thought to have had direct contact with only one other person between arriving in Glasgow and attending hospital on Monday.

A second health worker who returned from West Africa recently is being tested in Aberdeen for Ebola, it has emerged.

But Ms Sturgeon said there was only a "low probability" the woman also had the disease as she had not been in direct contact with anyone infected with Ebola.

Analysis: BBC health editor Hugh Pym

This latest incident will raise questions about the screening process in place for passengers leaving West Africa and arriving at Heathrow.

Public health officials say the woman was taken aside on arrival in the UK and her temperature was taken - the procedure followed for all incoming health staff who say they have been in contact with Ebola patients.

Her temperature was found to be normal and she was not feeling unwell, so she continued her journey to Glasgow.

Someone with Ebola only becomes infectious once they develop symptoms. In this case, that only became apparent after she arrived in Scotland.

The task of contacting the passengers and crew on the flights she took is now under way. That will be complicated, but officials are insisting the risk to those people is extremely low.

Efforts are being made to trace the 71 other passengers who travelled on the same flight from London to Glasgow as Ms Cafferkey.

A British Airways spokesman said: "The safety and security of our customers and crew is always our top priority and the risk to people on board that individual flight is extremely low."

A telephone helpline has been set up for anyone who was on the BA 1478 flight which left Heathrow Airport on Sunday evening. The number is 08000 858531.

Tom Solomon, director of Liverpool's Institute of Infection and Global Health, said of the reaction to Ms Cafferkey's diagnosis: "We've had training exercises up and down the country and that's why you've seen that the response has been very calm and very controlled.

"It's very important that despite this case we have healthcare workers continue to go out to west Africa to help bring this disease under control."

Paul Cosford, medical director for Public Health England described Ms Cafferkey as a "very brave person", telling BBC Breakfast she had "put herself in the front line of care for people with Ebola".

He also said that about 150 people in the UK had been tested for Ebola recently - with all except Mr Pooley and Ms Cafferkey returning a negative result.

Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England, said: "We have robust, well-developed and well-tested NHS systems for managing unusual infectious diseases when they arise, supported by a wide range of experts.

"The UK system was prepared, and reacted as planned, when this case of Ebola was identified."

Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the bodily fluids - such as blood, vomit or faeces - of an infected person.

The virus has killed more than 7,800 people, mostly in West Africa, since it broke out a year ago.

The World Health Organization says the number of people infected by the disease in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea has now passed 20,000.

What are the symptoms?

The early symptoms are a sudden fever, muscle pain, fatigue, headache and sore throat.

This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, a rash and bleeding - both internal and external - which can be seen in the gums, eyes, nose and in the stools.

Patients tend to die from dehydration and multiple organ failure.


Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Ebola patient arrives in London

Dengan url

http://beritaasalusil.blogspot.com/2014/12/ebola-patient-arrives-in-london.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Ebola patient arrives in London

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Ebola patient arrives in London

sebagai sumbernya

0 komentar:

Posting Komentar

techieblogger.com Techie Blogger Techie Blogger