The UK has recorded its first case of the Ebola virus, in a healthcare worker who just returned to the country from Sierra Leone.
Hospital authorities said that she came in on Sunday night, and has been in isolation at Glasgow’s Gartnavel Hospital, while all possible contacts with the case is being investigated.
The national health service said that the patient is believed to have had contact with only one other person since arriving in the city, but that all passengers on the flight she took will be traced.
Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, took part in two emergency meetings on Monday – one of the Scottish Government’s resilience committee, and one of the UK-wide Cobra committee, chaired by the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron.
She told journalists that as a precaution, Health Protection Scotland has traced and contacted, or left messages with, 63 of the 70 other passengers who were on the same flight from London to Glasgow as the patient.
Efforts, she said were being made to reach the remaining seven.
According to UK and Scottish protocol, for anyone diagnosed with Ebola, the patient will be transferred to the high level isolation unit in the Royal Free Hospital, London.
A second health worker who returned from West Africa recently is being tested in Aberdeen for Ebola, it has emerged.
