Scottish nurse fighting Ebola complications improves
GLASGOW, Scotland — The condition of a nurse fighting for her life after complications from an Ebola infection late last year was upgraded Monday, doctors said.
Pauline Cafferkey, 39, of the Glasgow suburb of Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, was admitted Sept. 9 to a London hospital after she started feeling ill earlier that week and doctors at a Glasgow after-hours clinic initially made an incorrect diagnosis and sent her home, her sister, Toni Cafferkey, previously said. Her condition became critical Wednesday.
"We are able to announce that Pauline Cafferkey’s condition has improved to serious but stable," a spokesman for the Royal Free Hospital said. She is again being treated for Ebola in the hospital's isolation unit.
Pauline Cafferkey was diagnosed in December with Ebola after returning to Glasgow from Africa. She had been working as a nurse at the Save the Children treatment center in Kerry Town, Sierra Leone.
Scottish nurse who recovered from Ebola critically ill
She spent almost a month in an isolation unit at Royal Free Hospital before being discharged in late January.
Scientists agree that bodily tissues can harbor an Ebola infection months after a patient appears to have fully recovered. Toni Cafferkey claimed that doctors "missed a big opportunity" to spot that her sister had fallen ill with Ebola again when she first went to the after-hours clinic almost two weeks ago.
A February report from Save the Children said Pauline Cafferkey probably was infected as a result of using a visor to protect her face rather than goggles. She had been unable to use standard protective goggles because she could not get them to fit properly.
Related:
Male Ebola survivors may be able to spread virus through sex for 9 months or more