Ebola Returns: 2nd Case of Relapse Raises Questions
Original article from: LiveScience posted on October 20, 2015. by Ashley P. Taylor
Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey — who became sick with Ebola about a year ago and recovered, but then became very ill again last week with what may be a relapse of the deadly virus — is now improving.
“Pauline Cafferkey’s condition has improved to serious but stable,” representatives from London’s Royal Free Hospital said in a statement Monday (Oct. 19).
Hospital representatives said on Oct. 9 that the nurse had developed an “unusual late complication” of the virus, and reported last week that she was “critically ill.” Cafferkey originally became sick with the disease in 2014 while caring for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, becoming the United Kingdom’s first Ebola patient. The nurse is now being “treated for Ebola in the high-level isolation unit,” according to the hospital’s statement last week.
Post-Ebola complications have been reported from both the 2014 outbreak and previous ones, Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious-disease specialist at Boston University, told Live Science. Another health care
worker who also became infected while treating patients in Africa, U.S. physician Ian Crozier, has reported that he suffered from hearing loss, back pain, seizures and vision problems since he recovered from Ebola last year. These are the kinds of symptoms many Ebola survivors have, Bhadelia said.