A British nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone was in critical condition yesterday, quarantined inside a specialist London hospital.
Pauline Cafferkey’s health has taken a turn for the worse in recent days, the Royal Free Hospital announced.
“The condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days and is now critical,” the hospital said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
On Wednesday, doctors had said the 39-year-old Scot was sitting up in bed, reading and talking to staff from inside her isolation tent in the hospital.
They said Cafferkey, who was working with the charity Save the Children in Sierra Leone, had agreed to have blood plasma treatment and take an experimental antiviral drug.
However, they were not able to give her ZMapp, the drug used to cure fellow British volunteer nurse William Pooley, because global supplies had run out.
The plasma was taken from the blood of a patient successfully treated in Europe, in the hope that the antibodies it contained would help her fight the virus.
“Ebola runs a very variable course and the next few days are going to be very critical... Things may get worse,” Royal Free Hospital infectious diseases consultant Michael Jacobs said at the time.
Cafferkey, who works for the UK’s National Health Service in Scotland, was volunteering at a British-built treatment center in Kerry Town, not far from Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, when she became infected.
“My thoughts and prayers are with nurse Pauline Cafferkey who is in critical condition with Ebola,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter.
Cafferkey is the second person to be treated for Ebola in Britain after Pooley, who recovered and has since returned to Sierra Leone.
She was diagnosed in Glasgow on Monday last week after flying home, and was transferred to the Royal Free Hospital, which has the nation’s only isolation ward equipped for Ebola patients.
Ebola killed 7,890 people in last year, out of 20,171 cases, according to the latest tally by the WHO.
As of Dec. 28 — not counting Cafferkey — a total of 678 healthcare workers were known to have contracted the virus, 382 fatally.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique