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A hospital in Britain has tonight confirmed it is treating a woman suspected of having the deadly Ebola virus.
A spokesman for Northampton General Hospital said: “I can confirm that we have a suspected case of Ebola. It is a female adult. She will be in isolation if she is suspected of having the illness.”
The hospital spokesman said she was unable to provide further details about the identity of the woman or how she may have contracted the illness.
The development comes after the London’s Royal Free Hospital, which is treating British nurse Pauline Cafferkey for Ebola, said this week she was no longer critically ill.
The Scottish public health nurse remains in an isolation unit where she is receiving specialist care and which said she was showing signs of improvement.
The news suggests she has “turned a corner”, although it is impossible to say how long a full recovery will take, according to Prof Hugh Pennington, one of Britain’s leading microbiologists.
British prime minister David Cameron welcomed the news during prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons. Ms Cafferkey was diagnosed with Ebola after returning from Sierra Leone to Glasgow.
Inquiry launched
The nurse, from Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, had volunteered with Save the Children at the Ebola Treatment Centre in Kerry Town, Sierra Leone, before returning to the UK.
Save the Children has launched an investigation into how she was infected, but admits it may never establish the exact circumstances.
She flew back to the UK via Casablanca in Morocco. Her temperature was tested seven times before she flew from Heathrow to Glasgow and she was cleared to travel.
She later became feverish and followed advice given to her at Heathrow to contact local services and was admitted to an isolation facility at the Brownlee unit in Gartnavel Hospital, Glasgow, at 8am on December 29th.
After a blood sample tested positive for Ebola, she was transferred in a military plane to the Royal Free Hospital by 8am on December 30th.