Ebola investigation launched

Save the Children teams are on the ground in West Africa responding to the Ebola outbreak which has killed more than 6,000 people so far in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali and Nigeria.

Not only are children in danger from the Ebola virus, they risk losing their parents or caregivers to the disease. The charity`s priority is to stop the spread of the disease and bring Ebola under control by running mass prevention and awareness campaigns.

- See more at: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/about-us/emergencies/ebola-crisis#sthash.3eYFNzVR.dpuf

Save the Children has launched an urgent investigation into how a Scottish nurse contracted the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone, as health chiefs promise to review screening measures in the UK.

"It’s really important for us to try and understand whether it was a failure of training, of protection, of procedure, or indeed whether she contracted it in some incidental contact within the community, because our workers don’t just work inside the red zone, which is a very high-risk area, they do also have contact - although we are very, very careful in briefing people to avoid personal contact - outside of the treatment centre."

 

Cafferkey, from Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, contracted the virus while carrying out a five-week volunteer placement for Save the Children. She returned to the UK on Sunday night and told officials at Heathrow she felt unwell but was allowed to catch a British Airways flight to Glasgow. The 39-year-old was diagnosed with Ebola the next morning and is receiving specialist treatment in a high-level isolation unit at the Royal Free hospital in London.

The chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, conceded that the case raised questions over Ebola screening precautions. She said Cafferkey had been well. "She had no symptoms. Her temperature was within the acceptable range. She would not be transmitting the virus, therefore she was cleared as fit to fly."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/31/scottish-ebola-case-save-children-investigation-pauline-cafferkey

A nurse who had been part of a mass prevention and awareness campaign complained of feeling unwell but at Heathrow was cleared  `fit to fly`. That is a bit of a contradiction worth investigating.