The condition of British nurse Pauline Cafferkey has improved significantly after she developed viral meningitis caused by Ebola, doctors said yesterday.
The nurse continues to be isolated in a treatment tent at the Royal Free Hospital, London.
She is taking an experimental drug GS-5734, it was revealed.
Infectious diseases consultant Dr Michael Jacobs gave a press conference alongside Dr Daniel Bausch, the World Health Organisation lead for Ebola, yesterday.
The nurse contracted the disease while working in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak.
When she returned to the UK her illness was not detected by airport screening procedures put in place for returning workers.
Now she has become a rare case of a patient facing a return of the viral infection – although a recent study in west Africa found large numbers of men showing continued traces of infection.
Dr Jacobs said: “I am hopeful Pauline will make a full recovery – maybe it will be with the help of this anti-viral drug, maybe it will be down to her own immune system. Over time I anticipate that the virus will be eradicated from her completely.
I am really pleased she has made a significant improvement. She is inside the tent, she is still in bed, but she is talking freely within the tent.
"She has got a long recovery ahead of her and she will be with us for quite a while.”
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