This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/world/europe/british-health-worker-infected-with-ebola-in-sierra-leone.html

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
British Health Worker Infected With Ebola Is Flying to London for Treatment American and British Aid Workers Infected With Ebola in Sierra Leone
(about 9 hours later)
LONDON — A Royal Air Force plane left Sierra Leone on Thursday carrying three British military health workers, of whom one has tested positive for the Ebola virus and the other two are under observation for signs of infection, officials said. An Ebola aid worker from the United States and another from Britain have been infected with the deadly virus in Sierra Leone, health officials said Thursday, a reminder that the epidemic that has ravaged West Africa for the past year is far from over.
The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., said the American, who was not identified, became infected while working at a treatment center and had been ordered flown back to the United States in isolation in a chartered plane.
The worker will be admitted Friday to the hospital at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, the institute said in a statement.
The N.I.H. hospital has treated one other Ebola patient: Nina Pham, a nurse infected while caring for a Liberian patient in Dallas. She recovered. Two other health workers with possible exposure to the virus were also treated at N.I.H., but turned out not to be infected.
Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha have also successfully treated American health workers who were infected in Africa and flown back to the United States.
Earlier Thursday, British officials said a Royal Air Force plane left Sierra Leone carrying three British military health workers, of whom one has tested positive for Ebola. The other two were under observation for signs of infection, officials said.
All three will be taken to the Royal Free Hospital in northwest London, which has a specialized isolation unit to treat Ebola patients. Two nurses, the only other Britons who have contracted the virus, survived infection last year after being treated at the hospital.All three will be taken to the Royal Free Hospital in northwest London, which has a specialized isolation unit to treat Ebola patients. Two nurses, the only other Britons who have contracted the virus, survived infection last year after being treated at the hospital.
Up to 700 British military personnel have been deployed in Sierra Leone to help combat Ebola, which has claimed almost 10,000 lives in the past 15 months since it began spreading mainly through Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. Up to 700 British military personnel have been deployed in Sierra Leone to help combat Ebola.
A statement from Public Health England, a government agency, said that after a military health specialist had been found to have the virus, “rapid tracing” had established that four others who had been in close contact required “further assessment.” The World Health Organization said Thursday that the number of deaths in the Ebola epidemic that has afflicted Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had surpassed 10,000.
Of those four, two people — who were not displaying symptoms — were flown back with the Ebola-infected patient aboard a military plane. The other two will be kept under observation in Sierra Leone, the agency said. While the number of new cases has fallen drastically in all three countries in recent months — and reached zero in Liberia last week — the transmission of the disease has been a resilient problem in the other two.
The statement did not identify the health workers by name or gender.
“The individual who has tested positive for Ebola was exposed to the virus in a front-line care setting in Sierra Leone,” it said.
Jenny Harries, an official at Public Health England in charge of dealing with the Ebola crisis, said in a statement: “We can confirm that all the appropriate support is being offered to these individuals. We would like to emphasize that there is no risk to the general public’s health, and the overall risk to the U.K. continues to be very low.”