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British Ebola patient lands in UK

A British military healthcare worker who tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone has arrived in the UK.

A British healthcare worker arrives in the UK from Sierra Leone
A British military healthcare worker has landed in the UK after contracting Ebola in Sierra Leone. (AAP)

A plane believed to be carrying a British military healthcare worker who tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone has landed in the UK.

The RAF plane, which has also brought back two of the female worker's colleagues for further monitoring, touched down at RAF Northolt in west London on Thursday afternoon.

All three will now be transferred to the Royal Free Hospital (RFH) in London where the infected worker will be treated at its special high-level isolation unit.

Public Health England (PHE) announced on Wednesday that the worker had tested positive for Ebola after being exposed to the virus while treating patients in Sierra Leone.

Up to 700 British military personnel are currently deployed in the West African country to aid the Ebola effort.

A total of four military healthcare workers are known to have come into contact with the infected worker and two of them will now be assessed at the RFH as a precautionary measure.

The pair that remain in Sierra Leone will be kept under observation there while a decision is made about whether to bring them to the UK.

Nurses Pauline Cafferkey and Will Pooley - the only other Britons to have tested positive for the disease - were also treated at the RFH and both made full recoveries.

A PHE spokeswoman said rapid tracing was undertaken in Sierra Leone to identify anyone who had been in recent close contact with the worker as soon as she was known to be infected.

The Ebola disease has killed more than 9960 people in West Africa.


2 min read

Published

Updated

Source: AAP



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