An American health care provider working in Sierra Leone who experienced a high-risk exposure to the Ebola virus will be coming to the Biocontainment Unit at Nebraska Medicine for observation and possible treatment. The patient is scheduled to arrive Sunday at approximately 2:00 p.m. CST aboard a private air ambulance.
“This patient has been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious,” said Phil Smith, M.D., medical director of the Biocontainment Unit at Nebraska Medicine. “However, we will be taking all appropriate precautions. This patient will be under observation in the same room used for treatment of the first three patients and will be carefully monitored to see if Ebola disease develops.”
Smith continues, “This patient will be observed for development of infection during the 21-day incubation period of the disease, both by monitoring for symptoms and through blood tests.”
In London it has been announced that the first Ebola patient on UK soil, Pauline Cafferkey, who was transferred to the Royal Free London hospital last Tuesday from Glasgow, that her condition has been downgraded Saturday.
According to hospital officials, “The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days and is now critical.”
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