Scottish authorities have revealed that a health care worker who just returned from Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and is being treated in a Glasgow hospital.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish First Minister called it the first case of Ebola ever diagnosed inside the United Kingdom.
The patient flew to Glasgow via Casablanca and London’s Heathrow Airport. The health care worker was admitted to the specialist Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases at Glasgow’s Gartnavel Hospital.
Sturgeon said, “the patient, who is not being identified, had traveled on an internal British Airways flight from London to Glasgow on Sunday night and that passengers on that flight will be contacted.” But she said the patient was not yet showing symptoms at the time.
“The patient had been screened for symptoms before leaving at Sierra Leone and again at London Heathrow Airport”, Sturgeon said.
She called the risk to the public “extremely low, ” adding that, “We have been preparing for this and have robust procedures in place.”
Sturgeon added that the patient would soon be transferred to an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Since the current Ebola outbreak began in December 2013 in the West African country of Guinea, there have been nearly 20,000 cases and more than 7,500 deaths, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
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