Scottish Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey recovers from late complication - Action News
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Scottish Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey recovers from late complication

A Scottish nurse who contracted and recovered from Ebola, but then suffered life-threatening complications from the virus persisting in her brain, has recovered enough to be transferred to a hospital near her home, doctors said on Thursday.

Pauline Cafferkey's condition is stable, hospital says

A Scottish nurse who contractedand recovered from Ebola, but then suffered life-threateningcomplications from the virus persisting in her brain, hasrecovered enough to be transferred to a hospital near her home,doctors said on Thursday.

Medics at a specialist unit at the Royal Free Hospital inLondon, where Pauline Cafferkey was readmitted in October, saidshe was no longer infectious and had been discharged from thereand admitted to a hospital in Glasgow, Scotland.

"Her condition is stable," the London hospital said in astatement.
British nurse Pauline Cafferkey in January 2014. She was recently treated for meningitis that developed as a result of lingering Ebola virus in her system. (Reuters)

Cafferkey, 39, contracted Ebola in December 2014 when shewas working in a treatment facility in Sierra Leone at theheight of an epidemic of the disease which swept through threecountries in West Africa.

Cafferkey initially recovered from the Ebola hemorrhagicfever and was sent home in January.

But in October she fell ill again and doctors found thevirus was persisting in tissues in her brain. They later saidshe had developed meningitis cause by the Ebola virus thefirst known such case.

Doctors said in October that Cafferkey was being treatedwith an experimental antiviral drug known as GS5734 being
developed by the U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences. Theygave no update on Thursday about whether they thought the drughad made a difference.

Latest data from the World Health Organization on the WestAfrica Ebola outbreak show the virus has killed some 11,300 ofthe more than 28,500 people it has infected since December2013.

Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola on November 7.