Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.K., a female health worker who returned from Sierra Leone to Glasgow, will receive specialist treatment at a London hospital prepared to handle infectious-disease outbreaks.

The patient was transferred to an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London, according to a statement on its website. While public health officials are gathering airline passenger lists and seeking anyone the worker may have come in contact with, they cautioned that it’s unlikely she infected others.

“The individual involved did not experience any symptoms consistent with the transmission of Ebola, and as such, the risk that this infection will have been passed from the affected individual to others is extremely unlikely,” Paul Cosford, director for health protection and medical director of Public Health England, said in a statement.

The patient, who was helping to fight the deadly viral outbreak in West Africa, arrived in Scotland late Dec. 28 from Sierra Leone. After feeling unwell, she was placed in isolation at Gartnavel General Hospital, where she was in stable condition, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the head of Scotland’s government, said at a press conference yesterday.

On her way back from Sierra Leone, the worker flew to London’s Heathrow airport via Casablanca on Royal Air Maroc, then on to Glasgow on a British Airways flight, according to the government. She flew from Freetown to Casablanca on Flight AT596, and from Casablanca to London on Flight AT0800. The London to Glasgow flight was BA1478.

Contacting Patients

Public Health England 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, the U.K. agency said in a statement. Health Protection Scotland is carrying out a similar exercise for the passengers on the Heathrow to Glasgow flight.

“It would appear that the patient has been diagnosed at the very early stages, before symptoms manifested,” Sturgeon said.

As of Dec. 29 there have been more than 20,000 people infected in the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, according to the World Health Organization. Of those, 7,842 have died. Medical workers in the U.S. and Spain have also been infected after caring for people who had contracted Ebola.

The Royal Free successfully treated William Pooley, a British health worker who was infected in Sierra Leone earlier this year and flown to the north London hospital’s high-level isolation unit. Pooley recovered and was discharged in September. He returned to Sierra Leone to continue working.

“Scotland has been preparing for this possibility from the beginning of the outbreak in West Africa and I am confident that we are well prepared,” Sturgeon said. “Our first thoughts at this time must be with the patient diagnosed with Ebola.”