Although Ebola is showing some signs of improvement especially in the hardest-hit areas such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, it still continues to affect people, including health workers. As of Monday, December 29, Scotland has just its first diagnosed case.
The patient is actually a health worker who provided her services in Sierra Leone. Health workers are considered to be high risk since they work closely with the patients. Ebola may not be infectious, but it can spread through bodily contact.
The worker, who is currently unnamed, flew from Sierra Leone to Morocco, then to Heathrow Airport in London. She's bound for Glasgow, Scotland. However, by the next day, she started to feel unwell and therefore immediately sought medical help as early as 7:50 a.m. The health care facility isolated her, per the normal procedure in treating people from Ebola-affected areas and showing symptoms. After some tests, her condition was confirmed to be Ebola.
The patient is now staying in an isolation unit in Glasgow's Gartnavel Hospital, but she will be moved to Royal Free Hospital, which has a specialist unit. Depending on her condition, she may be transported within the day through air ambulance.
The health secretary of the United Kingdom Jeremy Hunt wants to assure the public that right now risk is pretty low. The patient has been diagnosed very early, and unless she's showing symptoms while she's still traveling, which is unlikely, she remains non-infectious.
Nevertheless, he also mentioned that the government is doing everything it can to guarantee the safety of the public. They are now reaching out to those who may have interacted with the woman while in transit so they can be closely monitored for any symptoms, although based on the initial reports, she had interacted with only one person. The government is also further expanding its scope, including reviewing their protocols for health workers that may be assigned in Ebola-hit countries.