Ebola virus disease in the United Kingdom
Royal Free Hospital
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| Disease | Ebolavirus |
|---|---|
| First case | 29 December 2014 |
| Confirmed cases | 1 |
Ebola virus disease in the United Kingdom, includes an aid worker returning from treating victims of the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa who contracted the disease.
On 5 November 1976, Geoffrey Platt, a laboratory technician at the former Microbiological Research Establishment in Porton Down, Wiltshire, contracted Ebola in an accidental needlestick injury from a contaminated needle while handling samples from Africa. He was treated with human interferon and convalescent serum. The course of his disease was mild and he fully recovered.
The high-level isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital, in the Hampstead area of London, received its first case on 24 August 2014. William Pooley, a British nurse who contracted the disease while working in Sierra Leone as part of the relief effort for the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, was medically evacuated by the Royal Air Force on a specially-equipped C-17 aircraft.
He was released from hospital on 3 September 2014. Pooley delivered the UK's Channel 4 television program Alternative Christmas message in 2014. He was reported to be planning to return to Sierra Leone on October 19, 2014. He also donated blood to support developing a cure for the disease.
On 11 March 2015, a UK military worker tested positive for Ebola and was flown home for treatment at Royal Free Hospital in London. On 17 March, it was reported that another UK worker had been sent back to the United Kingdom from Sierra Leone due to fear of having contracted the virus. Corporal Anna Cross, the UK military worker tested positive for Ebola, was the first person in the world to be treated with the experimental Ebola drug MIL 77 and was released from hospital after making a full recovery. Cross contracted the disease in Sierra Leone while volunteering as a nurse. The doctors treating her at London's Royal Free Hospital confirmed it is too soon to speculate if the drug helped in her recovery.
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