Ebola in the UK: New suspected case in Gloucestershire, as Scottish nurse worsens

Great Western Hospital, Swindon

A new patient displaying symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus is being rushed to hospital as doctors say the Scottish nurse already suffering from the disease has worsened and is now in a critical condition.

Hospital officials said the unnamed new patient was being transferred to hospital in Swindon by specialist ambulance team after being taken ill after returning from West Africa.

The patient, from South Gloucestershire, will undergo tests at the hospital and if necessary be transferred to the specialist quarantine unit in London where nurse Pauline Cafferkey is already being treated.

A spokesman for the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: "Any suspected patients will be tested for a variety of things. If there was a confirmed Ebola case, they would be transferred to London."

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The local ambulance service said the patient was being transferred by its hazardous area response team. A spokeswoman said: "That patient has recently returned from West Africa and has made complaints of feeling unwell."

Two other suspected cases of Ebola last week later tested negative for the disease. A patient in Truro and a woman in Aberdeen were both tested after returning from West Africa, but were found not to have the disease.

Doctors said Ms Cafferkey's condition had worsened on Saturday and she was now critically ill.

The 39-year-old is being treated in a quarantine tent at the Royal Free Hospital in north London said after she was diagnosed with the deadly virus late last month.

Miss Cafferkey, a Scottish public health nurse who had been volunteering in the stricken West African country, was diagnosed with the disease after returning to Glasgow from Sierra Leone via Casablanca in Morocco.

A brief statement on the hospital's website said: "The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days and is now critical."

David Cameron said: "My thoughts and prayers are with nurse Pauline Cafferkey who is in a critical condition with Ebola."

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said the nurse was being given the "best possible care".

Her deterioration came just days after the team treating her said she was sitting up in bed in her quarantine tent and talking to relatives through an intercom system.

Doctors have been treating her with an experimental antiviral drug and with plasma from another health worker who recovered from the disease. The hospital has been unable to obtain ZMapp, the drug used to treat recovered British nurse William Pooley, because "there is none in the world at the moment", doctors said.

A senior microbiologist said it was very difficult to judge her chances of survival, because so little was known about how to combat the virus and the new drugs were experimental.

Prof Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, said people with the disease can deteriorate "very quickly".

He said using blood from a recovered Ebola patient to treat her was the "best chance" for recovery.

Prof Pennington said: "We have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. It's the luck of the draw unfortunately.

"Some people do recover, but some don't make it. We still don't know enough about Ebola."

She is being treated with an experimental antiviral drug along with the blood from a survivor after the hospital was unable to obtain ZMapp, the drug used to treat recovered British nurse William Pooley, because "there is none in the world at the moment".

Mr Pennington said: "The plasma is probably her best chance of treatment as that is actual antibodies from people who have recovered from Ebola.

"Because of the small number of people treated with experimental drugs, it's difficult to judge the percentage of success.

"We also don't know the circumstances of the infection. That might be important."