Pauline Cafferkey, the nurse being treated at a London hospital for a recurrence of ebola, is no longer critically ill, doctors said yesterday.
Her condition is “serious but stable” after a deterioration last week which they described as “staggering”.
Ms Cafferkey, 39, was admitted to the isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital more than a week ago after falling ill in Glasgow. She was first infected with ebola while working as a nurse at a Save the Children treatment centre in Sierra Leone last year.
Ben Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading, said: “We still don’t know exactly what complications Pauline is experiencing but this is encouraging news. She is not out of the woods yet but her fighting spirit, combined with her body’s knowledge of ebola, gives me great hope for her recovery. Fingers crossed she pulls through.”
Ms Cafferkey was flown from Glasgow in a military aircraft in the early hours of October 9 to be treated at the hospital’s isolation unit.
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Her sister criticised an out-of-hours GP service for sending her home without diagnosing the relapse. Experts have said the complication is extremely rare.
Officials have traced 58 people who had close contact with Ms Cafferkey, and offered 40 of them vaccinations.
Save the Children said she was probably infected initially because she wore a visor to protect her face rather than goggles, which she could not get to fit.
Scientists say that ebola can lie undetected in tissue, such as the fluid in the eye, for months.