Ebola Outbreak: British Survivor William Pooley To Return To West Africa

A British nurse who survived Ebola said he plans to return to West Africa - where he contracted the deadly virus - to help the fight against the outbreak.

William Pooley, 29, from Suffolk, said going back to Sierra Leone was the least he could do to return the favour to those who helped and assisted him during illness.

"So while I'm happy to be recovered and alive, there's a lot of stuff on my mind with what's going on back there," Pooley told The Guardian.

"It would be relatively safe for me to go back and work there, and it's really the least I could do having received all this amazing care and have people look after me and potentially save my life.

"The more help they get the less chance there is they get sick. If they get sick they are just going to end up in a ward in Kenema with less chance than I had."

Pooley had initially assured his parents he was not going to return to Sierra Leone, while his passport had been incinerated as part of procedures to destroy potentially infected items.

However, his mother Jackie said she was proud he was considering going back.

"Obviously in a way we don't want [him] to, but I can see I would feel very proud of him if he decided he was going to, because he knows what it is going to be like," she said.

Pooley was flown back to the UK on an RAF plane on 24 August after contracting Ebola while treating patients in Sierra Leone.

He was taken to the Royal Free Hospital in London by doctors wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and underwent treatment using the experimental ZMapp drug.

He was discharged earlier in September after making a full recovery.

More than 3,500 people have been infected with the disease and at least 1,900 have died during the current outbreak in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, according to the World Health Organization.