Desperate Bid To Save First Briton Struck By Ebola Virus

File - Ebola Virus Disease

A British charity worker infected by the deadly Ebola virus sweeping through West Africa is to be flown home in a desperate bid to save his life.

The man, the first Briton to contract the disease outside the laboratory, will be transported by the RAF from Sierra Leone, where 392 people are known to have died of the virus this year. The evacuation will take place today or tomorrow, Mail on Sunday reports.

The decision to fly him back was taken yesterday after a top-level meeting during which Ministers concluded there was ‘no risk’ that the repatriation would trigger an outbreak in the UK.

A military aircraft was last night being equipped with a specially designed isolation tent, and infectious diseases experts were on standby to oversee the emergency evacuation.

Few details have emerged about the man’s identity, but it is understood he is a medic working for a British charity on the front line of the battle against Ebola.

He will be flown into RAF Northolt near Heathrow in West London then driven across the capital by London Ambulance Service to North London and the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead Heath – the only hospital in Britain equipped to treat an Ebola patient and contain the virus. 
Professor Sir Bruce Keogh said: ‘We have prepared rigorous plans for this type of situation.

‘This individual will pose no risk to the public, and only the tiniest risk to those who those who come into direct contact with him.

‘Ebola is not an airborne virus and can only be transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, vomit, sweat and diarrhoea.’

The decision to fly the British man home was taken yesterday morning in a meeting involving Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Sir Bruce and Number 10.

A Ministry of Defence source said the man would be flown back in a C-130 Hercules, probably from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. The ebola outbreak, which has ripped through Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia in West Africa, is by far the biggest ever recorded.

The only other Briton ever known to have contracted ebola is former laboratory technician Geoffrey Platt, who accidentally pricked his thumb while taking a sample from an infected guinea pig at the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, in November 1976. He suffered three days of extreme weakness, diarrhoea and vomiting, and a rash that covered his body – but he survived. Mr Platt then spent 40 days in quarantine.

Now 80, he said earlier this month: ‘The public need to be alert and everything needs to be done to stop ebola breaking out in Britain.’

So far there have been 2,615 confirmed cases and 1,427 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and casualties continue to mount by the day.

Dozens of British volunteers are thought to be working with ebola patients across the region. Although they wear full biological protection suits and are highly trained in infection control, they run the risk every day of catching the killer disease.