A hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, is testing a patient for suspected Ebola, marking Britain’s first suspected case since an Ebola outbreak in Central Africa was announced in May.
| PULSE POINTS |
📺 DETAIL: On Tuesday, it was announced that a patient was being tested for Ebola at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. While Public Health Scotland (PHS), the country’s main public health agency, has stated that there are currently no confirmed cases of the virus in Scotland, if the patient tests positive, it will be the first case of Ebola in the United Kingdom since the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was announced earlier this year. The World Health Organization (WHO) has since declared the DRC outbreak a public health emergency. Since it was reported that the patient was being assessed for Ebola, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) Returning Workers Scheme (RWS) has been activated to monitor people returning from high-risk regions. “Where required, contact tracing will occur and contacts may undergo clinical assessment and precautionary testing,” said a PHS spokesman. 💬 KEY QUOTE: “There are currently no confirmed cases of Ebola in Scotland and the risk to the general public remains low.” – Public Health Scotland spokesman. 🎯 IMPACT: If confirmed, this would mark the first case of Ebola in the United Kingdom since the DRC outbreak was declared on May 15. The last time the country had Ebola was 2014, when a Scottish nurse contracted the virus after visiting Sierra Leone, a country on the west coast of Africa. Ebola is rare but deadly. Ebola normally spreads from direct contact with bodily fluids, mainly blood. Symptoms appear after two to 21 days. Early symptoms include headache, fever, and tiredness. More severe symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, organ failure, and bleeding, both internal and external. The recent outbreak involves the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which has no vaccine or specific treatment, making it hard to contain and cure. 📺 FLASHBACK: This story comes roughly a week after it was reported that Ebola had spread to Europe. Earlier in June, France confirmed its first case of Ebola after a French doctor returning from Africa tested positive for the disease. The doctor had been on a humanitarian trip to the DRC. At present, over 1,000 confirmed cases and 277 deaths have been recorded. “Normally when we have these Ebola outbreaks, and I had three of them when I was CDC director, all of which were in the DRC, normally we recognize them when we have five, ten cases, you know, at most… This one really wasn’t picked up until there was over 100 cases,” said Robert Redfield, former Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in an interview in May. |
Join Pulse+ to comment below, and receive exclusive e-mail analyses.