Showing posts with label ebola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebola. Show all posts

Monday, 12 October 2015

Family of Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey says she was 'let down'

Family of Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey says she was 'let down'

  • 11 October 2015
  •  
  • From the sectionScotland
Pauline Cafferkey
Image captionPauline Cafferkey previously spent a month in the specialist isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London
The family of nurse Pauline Cafferkey says doctors "missed a big opportunity" to spot she had fallen ill again.
Ms Cafferkey is in an isolation unit in London after tests indicated the Ebola virus is still present in her body.
The health board confirmed she was sent home by an out-of-hours doctor in Glasgow earlier this week.
In an interview with the Sunday Mail newspaper, her sister Toni Cafferkey said it was "absolutely diabolical" the way the nurse had been treated.
Ms Cafferkey, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, spent almost a month in isolation at the beginning of the year after contracting the virus in December 2014.
Bodily tissues can harbour the Ebola infection months after the person appears to have fully recovered.
Media captionBBC News looks at why some Ebola survivors suffer a flare up of symptoms
On Tuesday, the 39-year-old was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow after feeling unwell.
She was later flown to the Royal Free Hospital in London where she remains in a serious condition in an isolation unit. She is not thought to be contagious.
Toni Cafferkey told the Sunday Mail that her sister had gone to a GP out-of-hours clinic at the Victoria Hospital in Glasgow on Monday night but the doctor who assessed her diagnosed a virus and sent her home.
She said: "At that point me and my family believe they missed a big opportunity to give the right diagnosis and we feel she was let down. Instead of being taken into hospital, she spent the whole of Tuesday very ill.
"I think it is absolutely diabolical the way she has been treated... We don't know if the delays diagnosing Pauline have had an adverse effect on her health, but we intend to find out.
"It has not been good enough. We think there have been major failings and we just want her to pull through. This kind of recurrence seems to be rare but we don't yet know enough about it."
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde confirmed that Ms Cafferkey did attend the New Victoria Hospital GP out-of-hours service on Monday.
A spokesman said: "Her management and the clinical decisions taken based on the symptoms she was displaying at the time were entirely appropriate.
"All appropriate infection control procedures were carried out as part of this episode of care."
Ebola isolation unit
On Friday, a statement from the Royal Free Hospital confirmed Ms Cafferkey had been transferred to the hospital "due to an unusual late complication of her previous infection by the Ebola virus".
It added: "The Ebola virus can only be transmitted by direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids of an infected person while they are symptomatic, so the risk to the general public remains low and the NHS has well-established and practised infection control procedures in place."

Tuesday, 30 December 2014

A health worker who was diagnosed with Ebola

Ebola healthcare worker transferred to London unit

The BBC's Nick Quraishi says the patient was whisked past reporters in an RAF ambulance
A health worker who was diagnosed with Ebola after returning to Scotland from Sierra Leone has arrived at a specialist treatment centre in London.
The woman, who travelled to Glasgow via Casablanca and London Heathrow, was taken to the Royal Free Hospital.
She is understood to have been flown to RAF Northolt in a military plane after leaving Glasgow in a convoy.
Passengers on flights she took to the UK are being traced, but officials say the risk to the public is very low.
The woman left Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow just after 03:00 GMT on Tuesday.
Six police cars accompanied two ambulances as she was taken to Glasgow Airport. She has been taken to an isolation unit at the north London hospital from the RAF base in west London.
The patient being transferred from hospital in GlasgowThe female patient left hospital in Glasgow in the early hours of Tuesday
The ambulance arriving at the Royal Free HospitalThe woman arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in north London just before 08:00 GMT
UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said NHS safety measures in place were working well.
Mr Hunt, who chaired an emergency Cobra meeting on Monday evening, said the government was doing "absolutely everything it needs to" to keep the public safe.
"We are also reviewing our procedures and protocols for all the other NHS workers who are working at the moment in Sierra Leone," he added.
The patient, who had been working with Save the Children in Sierra Leone, arrived in Glasgow on a British Airways flight on Sunday but was placed in an isolation unit at Gartnavel Hospital on Monday morning after becoming feverish.
Under UK and Scottish protocol, she was moved to the high-level isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital.
UK nurse William Pooley - who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone earlier this year - was successfully treated at the same facility.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Committee on Monday, said the risk to the public was "extremely low to the point of negligible".
She added the patient was thought to have had direct contact with only one other person between arriving in Glasgow and attending hospital on Monday.
A second health worker who returned from West Africa recently is being tested in Aberdeen for Ebola, it has emerged.
But Ms Sturgeon said there was only a "low probability" the woman also had the disease as she has not had direct contact with anyone infected with Ebola.
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Analysis: BBC health editor Hugh Pym
Ebola screening at Heathrow
This latest incident will raise questions about the screening process in place for passengers leaving West Africa and arriving at Heathrow.
Public health officials say the woman was taken aside on arrival in the UK and her temperature was taken - the procedure followed for all incoming health staff who say they have been in contact with Ebola patients.
Her temperature was found to be normal and she was not feeling unwell, so she continued her journey to Glasgow.
Someone with Ebola only becomes infectious once they develop symptoms. In this case, that only became apparent after she arrived in Scotland.
The task of contacting the passengers and crew on the flights she took is now under way. That will be complicated, but officials are insisting the risk to those people is extremely low.
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Efforts are being made to trace the 71 other passengers who travelled on the same flight from London to Glasgow.
A British Airways spokesman said: "The safety and security of our customers and crew is always our top priority and the risk to people on board that individual flight is extremely low."
A telephone helpline has been set up for anyone who was on the BA 1478 flight which left Heathrow Airport on Sunday evening. The number is 08000 858531.

Glasgow Ebola case

Patient flight details - 28 December

  • Flight AT596 from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to Casablanca, arriving 06:10 GMT
  • Flight AT800 from Casablanca to London Heathrow, arriving 15:50 GMT
  • Flight BA1478 from London Heathrow to Glasgow, arriving 22:20 GMT
Reuters
Tom Solomon, director of Liverpool's Institute of Infection and Global Health, said of the reaction to the woman's diagnosis: "We've had training exercises up and down the country and that's why you've seen that the response has been very calm and very controlled.
"It's very important that despite this case we have healthcare workers continue to go out to west Africa to help bring this disease under control."
Paul Cosford, medical director for Public Health England described the woman as a "very brave person", telling BBC Breakfast she had "put herself in the front line of care for people with Ebola".
He also said that about 150 people in the UK had been tested for Ebola recently - with all except Mr Pooley and the female patient being taken from Glasgow returning a negative result.
Glasgow ebola patient mapThe patient had travelled from Freetown in Sierra Leone via Casablanca
Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England, said: "We have robust, well-developed and well-tested NHS systems for managing unusual infectious diseases when they arise, supported by a wide range of experts.
"The UK system was prepared, and reacted as planned, when this case of Ebola was identified."
Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the bodily fluids - such as blood, vomit or faeces - of an infected person.
The virus has killed more than 7,800 people, mostly in West Africa, since it broke out a year ago.
The World Health Organization says the number of people infected by the disease in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea has now passed 20,000.
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What are the symptoms?
Ebola virusesThe Ebola virus causes a range of painful and debilitating symptoms
The early symptoms are a sudden fever, muscle pain, fatigue, headache and sore throat.
This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, a rash and bleeding - both internal and external - which can be seen in the gums, eyes, nose and in the stools.
Patients tend to die from dehydration and multiple organ failure.

More on This Story

Monday, 3 November 2014

the Ebola crisis

Ebola appeal poster
A public appeal to help people affected by the Ebola crisis in West Africa has received £4 million in donations in its first two days, organisers have said.
The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said it had been "overwhelmed" by the "extraordinary generosity" of the UK public since the appeal was launched.
The UK government is to match the first £5 million of donations made.
Ebola has killed almost 5,000 people and infected more than 13,000 in West Africa since the start of the year.
On Friday, the World Health Organisation said 4,951 people had died during the current outbreak, with 13,567 reported cases up to 29 October.
Protective clothing
Donations have been made after appeals were aired by the main UK broadcasters on Thursday.
It is the first time the DEC has sought funds in response to a disease outbreak.
"We are extremely grateful to the UK government for the aid match funding which is a significant boost to the appeal," chief executive of DEC Saleh Saeed said.
Donations help pay for nurses and doctors on the ground, says Save the Children's Justin Forsyth
"The UK government will match a further £1 million raised, so we encourage the UK public to donate as soon as possible to double the amount of their donation.
"Our member agencies have already achieved so much - providing protective clothing, educating communities and supporting safe and dignified burials - but there is so much more to do."
Agencies have been increasing their aid efforts in West Africa, where they have already helped more than 2.5 million people affected by the Ebola crisis, a DEC spokesman said.
They included people in some in the worst-affected and most remote areas of Sierra Leone and Liberia, the spokesman added.
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Deaths from Ebola
Graph of death tolls from Ebola since April showing Liberia and Sierra Leone as the worst affected countries
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Justin Forsyth, chief executive of the charity Save the Children, said donations would make "a massive difference" by helping to pay for nurses and doctors on the ground.
Speaking to the BBC from Sierra Leone, he said officials needed additional staff and equipment and called on more governments around the world to offer financial support.
"It is getting worse, not better, on the ground here; we are not yet ahead of the curve, we are in a race against time and we need to urgently act on the ground - and money if very, very important," he said.
It comes after Canada announced it was to suspend visa applications from residents and passport-holders from West African countries affected by the Ebola outbreak.
The decision follows a similar decision by Australia, which drew criticism from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The ban would apply to countries with "widespread and persistent-intense transmission", Canada said.
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Other Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeals:
  • A total of £71m was raised by the Pakistan Floods Appeal which affected more than 18 million people. The floods swept across the country in July and August of 2010
  • The UK public donated £95m for the Philippines Typhoon Appeal which has to date helped more than 900,000 people. The appeal was launched in November 2013
  • The Syria Crisis Appeal opened in March 2013 and has raised about £25m
  • An appeal for people affected by the fighting in Gaza was launched in January 2009 and raised £8.3m
  • A total of £107m was raised for people adversely affected by the earthquake in Haiti

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