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The voice of Scotland’s vibrant voluntary sector

Published by Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations

TFN is published by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh, EH3 6BB. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Registration number SC003558.

Ebola nurse: charity launches investigation

This news post is about 9 years old
 

"No stone left unturned" says aid charity as it launches investigation into Ebola outbreak

Save the Children said it will undertake a thorough investigation into how a Scottish nurse volunteering for the charity contracted the deadly ebola virus.

Pauline Cafferkey from Cambuslang is critically ill in hospital in London after contracting the disease while working for the organisation in Kerrytown, Sierra Leone.

She had been part of a team of medical volunteers deployed to Sierra Leone by the UK government in November.

Since she returned to the UK a week ago, her condition has deteriorated badly.

Because of this very serious event we have put in place an extraordinary review

Save the Children's Sierra Leone director Rob MacGillavray said the investigation would look at how protective equipment is used, and at person-to-person contact both inside and outside the Kerrytown treatment centre where the nurse worked.

“Because of this very serious event we have put in an extraordinary review to ensure that we do everything, leave no stone unturned, to be able to as far as possible identify the source of this infection," he said.

“Everybody is exposed to a certain amount of risk working in Sierra Leone at the moment but we will certainly be focusing on how the personal protection equipment was used, how it was put on, and more importantly how it was taken off.

MacGillivray added he was “confident” in the protocols the charity had in place and the results of the review would be published once completed.

The 39-year-old nurse is being treated with an experimental anti-viral drug at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead after being transferred from Glasgow last week.