Ebola-infected UK nurse fights for life

An Ebola-infected British nurse who is critical will be treated with blood plasma from a survivor of the disease and an experimental drug.

Pauline Cafferkey, Ebola, Nurse

Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey (AAP)

A British nurse with Ebola is fighting for her life as two health workers, who also spent time in Sierra Leone, were placed under observation in the US and Germany.

"The condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days and is now critical," the Royal Free Hospital said on Saturday.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told BBC television Ebola was "uppermost" in his mind given Cafferkey's condition and said he was "thinking of her and her family".

Cafferkey's doctors said she had agreed to be treated with blood plasma from an Ebola survivor containing virus-fighting antibodies as well as an experimental anti-viral drug.

Cafferkey was volunteering at a British-built treatment centre in Kerry Town, not far from Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, when she contracted the deadly virus.

She was diagnosed in Glasgow on December 29, a day after flying home, and was transferred to the Royal Free, which has the only isolation ward in Britain equipped for Ebola patients.

Expert microbiologist Professor Hugh Pennington said she would need luck to survive the disease, which experts still do not fully understand.

"The plasma is probably her best chance of treatment," he said.

In the US, a healthcare worker who also spent time in Sierra Leone, was to be placed under observation at a Nebraska hospital after high-risk exposure to the Ebola virus, health officials said.

In Germany, a South Korean medical worker recently working with patients in Sierra Leone was hospitalised and placed in an isolation unit, according to Berlin's Charite hospital.

The patient was displaying no symptoms, but sustained a "slight" cut to the finger while taking the blood of a patient on December 29.

The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 7,900 people out of more than 20,300 cases, according to the latest tally Friday by the World Health Organisation.

Almost all the deaths and cases have been recorded in the three west African countries worst hit by the outbreak: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

As part of attempts to halt the epidemic, Sierra Leone announced on Sunday the lockdown in the northern Tonkolili district had been extended for two weeks.

It also imposed "additional screening measures" at Freetown International Airport after two workers apparently caught the disease.


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Source: AAP



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