Ebola: British military health worker tests positive for virus in Sierra Leone

A UK military healthcare worker in Sierra Leone has tested positive for Ebola, the Ministry of Defence has announced.

She is currently being treated in the Kerry Town treatment unit in the country and her next of kin have been informed.

A decision on whether the individual will be evacuated to the UK for treatment has not yet been made.

An investigation into how the person was exposed to the virus is underway, Public Health England (PHE) said.

The tracing of individuals in recent contact with the diagnosed worker is being undertaken, PHE added.

"Any individuals identified as having had close contact will be assessed and a clinical decision made regarding bringing them to the UK," it said.

"The UK has robust, well-developed and well-tested systems for managing Ebola and the overall risk to the public in the UK continues to be very low."

The patient is one of hundreds of British civilian and military personnel in the country who are helping fight the outbreak of the disease.

British Ebola patients in Sierra Leone

In February, a British NHS worker was evacuated from Sierra Leone back to the UK amid fears she may have contracted the deadly Ebola virus, after she was splashed with an Ebola victim's bodily fluid.

The female worker, who was working for the British Red Cross, was only the third person to be taken back to the UK in a sealed isolation unit. However, the patient's results have come back negative.

Two other British citizens, nurses Will Pooley and Pauline Cafferkey, made full recoveries from Ebola after being infected with the virus in West Africa.

Pooley, from Eyke in Suffolk, tested positive for the virus while in Sierra Leone last August and was flown back to the UK by the RAF.

A Scottish public health worker, nurse Cafferkey, from Cambuslang, in South Lanarkshire, had volunteered with Save The Children at a treatment centre in Kerry Town in Sierra Leone.

She was diagnosed with Ebola after returning to Glasgow and was admitted to the city's Gartnavel hospital on 29 December before being transferred to the Royal Free the following day.

She was discharged from hospital after making a full recovery from Ebola in January.

Welsh case

Another patient, this time an individual understood to be from Barry, was being tested for suspected Ebola by doctors in Cardiff yesterday.

The patient has a history of travel to west Africa, the epicentre of the outbreak of the deadly virus.

However, Public Health Wales said it was confident the risk to others was low.

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