British nurse who recovered from Ebola back in hospital again

[February 23, 2016]  LONDON (Reuters) - A Scottish nurse, who recovered from Ebola but then suffered life-threatening complications from the virus persisting in her brain, has been admitted to hospital for a third time, a hospital in Scotland said on Tuesday.

Pauline Cafferkey contracted Ebola in December 2014 when she was working in a treatment facility in Sierra Leone at the height of an epidemic of the disease which swept through three countries in West Africa.

Cafferkey is now at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city.

"Under routine monitoring by the Infectious Diseases Unit Pauline Cafferkey has been admitted to hospital for further investigations," the body that runs the hospital said in a statement.

It said it would not publish updates on her condition to protect patient confidentiality.

During Cafferkey's previous hospital admissions, officials did provide details of her condition and treatment. Cafferkey initially recovered from the Ebola hemorrhagic fever and was sent home in January last year.

But in October she fell ill again and doctors found the virus was persisting in tissues in her brain. They later said she had developed meningitis caused by the Ebola virus - the first known such case.

She was treated with an experimental antiviral drug known as GS5734 being developed by U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences, although doctors did not disclose whether they thought the drug had improved her condition.

She was discharged from the Royal Free Hospital in London in November.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Kate Holton; editing by Michael Holden)

[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.