Scots Ebola nurse named as second Scot is tested

She arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in north London today in an RAF truck accompanied by police cars. She flew back to the UK via Casablanca in Morocco and London Heathrow, arriving at Glasgow Airport at around 11.30pm on Sunday on a British Airways flight.

Ms Cafferkey is an associate public health nurse at Blantyre Health Centre in South Lanarkshire. She has been a nurse for 16 years and says she was inspired to go into the profession after seeing images of the Ethiopian famine on the television in the 1980s.

She volunteered with Save the Children to help with the Ebola crisis, which has claimed the lives of more than 7,000 people to date. She flew out to Freetown in Sierra Leone in November, along with another four Scottish volunteers, as part of a UK group of 30 NHS medical staff.

She wrote movingly about her four weeks in Sierra Leone in a newspaper diary, describing how she had to tell a young boy his mother had died from the virus. His father and sister also died from Ebola, she discovered.

"The sad thing is that this is a regular occurrence and we see and hear of whole families being wiped out by this awful disease," she wrote.

She was admitted to hospital early yesterday morning after feeling feverish and was placed into isolation in the Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases at the city's Gartnavel Hospital at 7.50am. She was transferred from Glasgow Airport on a military-style plane in a quarantine tent surrounded by a group of health workers in full protection suits, bound for London.

Dr Martin Deahl said he sat next to Mrs Cafferkey on the flights from West Africa to Scotland on Sunday night.

Dr Deahl said there was "a bit of a reunion" between NHS volunteers when they met at Freetown airport for the flight home after spending five weeks in Sierra Leone, and "everybody sat next to everybody else" as they shared their experiences.

He added: "I would bet anything that she caught this in the community and not in the treatment centre. We had absolute confidence in the equipment and in our training. I cannot see, if you followed the procedures and the protocols properly, I cannot see any way that someone could be contaminated.

"But people went down town, people went out for runs in the morning, and mixed in the local community. I went to church on Christmas morning, and although there was a strict policy of no touching, no body contact with anyone and keeping a distance from local people, I think those were the times when we were most at risk."

Meanwhile, two more people who have been in West Africa were being tested for Ebola, one in Scotland and one in Cornwall.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the Scottish patient was another healthcare worker who had recently returned from the region.

It is understood the Scottish patient who is being tested had been staying at a youth hostel in the Highlands and was being transferred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Ms Sturgeon told BBC Scotland: "I should stress that, although this is another returning healthcare worker from West Africa, the patient here, as far as we are aware, has had no direct contact with people infected with Ebola, so it is a case that is being described as low probability.

"But we are operating, given the seriousness of Ebola, on a highly precautionary basis and that's why this patient over the course of today will be transferred for tests."

A statement from NHS Grampian regarding the patient from the Highlands who will be tested said: "The patient with possible Ebola infection is expected to arrive in the infection unit at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary later this evening.

"The patient, a female adult, is low risk but became unwell following her return from a country with an Ebola outbreak within the last 21 days.

"She has not had any contact in the UK with the confirmed case from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

"The patient is stable and is not giving any cause for clinical concern. The risk to the general public of contracting Ebola in Scotland remains very low."

The Cornish patient has been placed in isolation at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske, Truro. It is understood the patient, who attended the hospital this morning, recently returned from a country affected by an outbreak of the virus.

Ms Sturgeon said she has chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government's resilience committee and has taken part in a meeting of Cobra, chaired by the Prime Minister.

She thanked everyone who worked to make sure the transfer of the nurse took place overnight "quickly and efficiently".

The First Minister told today's media briefing: "The latest update we have on the condition of the patient is that she is doing as well as can be expected in the circumstances.

"We're not going to provide a running commentary at this stage on the clinical condition of the patient for reasons I am sure you will understand.

"If there are any material developments then they will be conveyed to the media as is appropriate.

"But I think the most important thing is that the patient and the clinical team caring for her are given the space and the privacy to make sure that she gets the best possible treatment and given the best possible chance of a speedy and full recovery.

"I will take the opportunity, I'm sure on behalf of everyone in the country, of wishing her all the best and wishing her that speedy recovery."

Ms Sturgeon said Health Protection Scotland is making "very good progress" with contacting passengers on the flight from Heathrow to Glasgow.

The one other person who had contact with the patient but was not on the flight has also been contacted.

Of the flight passengers, she said: "After the passenger list was received last night, there were 70 people that required to be traced.

"As of this time, 63 of them have been contacted and either spoken to directly or have had messages left for them, so some contact has been made with 63 out of the 70."

Efforts will be made during the course of the day to contact the remaining seven.

The First Minister added: "There are two, effectively, groups of passengers, those who were in closest proximity - the passengers in the two rows behind and the two rows in front.

"There were eight people in that category. Five of them have been spoken to and three have had messages left.

"Health Protection Scotland are making very good progress with that.

"The one other individual other than fellow passengers that we know the patient had contact with has also been contacted and given the appropriate advice and reassurance."

Ms Sturgeon said officials had no contact details in two cases but efforts were continuing to trace those people.

The First Minister said test results for the second "low probability" Scottish case were expected by this evening.

She said: "While we have to be cautious and we cannot rule anything out, there is no great expectation at this stage that we're looking at another likely positive case.

"Nevertheless, we are acting on a highly precautionary basis so arrangements are under way to transfer this patient from the location in Highland to Aberdeen and a test will be done and processed over the course of today and we expect to have the test result some time during the course of the evening."

She added: "The risk to any other person, including the other passengers on the flights in question in terms of the case that's been confirmed as positive, is extremely low. I used the word negligible last night and that continues to be a word I would use today.

"The risks to the wider public are extremely negligible. Clearly given the nature of this disease we act on a highly precautionary basis.

"We make sure that the procedures that we have in place are robust and that they are implemented properly when need be, but there is no cause for the public to be unduly concerned the situation that we're facing."