The parents of a British nurse infected with ebola say they knew he was doing well when he ate a bacon butty in his hospital bed.
William Pooley, 29, is recovering in an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London, where he has been for a week after contracting the disease while volunteering in Sierra Leone. His parents have been able to see him only “indistinctly” through his plastic protection tent at the hospital, but have talked to him over a telephone link.
His father Robin told the BBC: “He’s a lot better than we thought he might have been, we’ve only got what the medics tell us, but he’s got a little step in there which the physio gave him so he can rebuild his strength, that in itself is a good enough sign I think, but he seems to be pretty well actually. And his appetite’s back, it came back with a bacon butty one morning for breakfast.”
Doctors have treated Mr Pooley with an experiment drug, ZMapp, which has shown promising results in monkey trials. So far more than 1,500 people have died in west Africa in the worst outbreak of ebola the world has seen.
Mr Pooley did not tell his parents that he had contracted the virus until he knew he was going to be flown home, which his mother Jackie said was a “very stressful” time. “It wasn’t until the plane had taken off that we breathed a very, very small sigh of relief, we knew he was on his way home,” she said.
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“He’s very aware of what he left behind. We’re very glad he’s here because the care is second to none.” The family said they were feeling much “happier now than we did in a week ago” and in the long-term hope he will make a full recovery.