Scottish ebola nurse fully recovered after relapse

LONDON, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- A Scottish nurse who was hospitalized for complications of the ebola virus months after she was initially cured has been released from hospital isolation after recovering.

Pauline Cafferkey, 39, contracted the ebola virus while working in the Kerry Town Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone. She was flown to London's Royal Free Hospital for treatment in January.

Cafferkey recovered and returned to work as a public health nurse in her native Scotland, but developed meningitis, caused by the virus, nine months later, and returned to the London hospital. She has since recovered after becoming critically ill in the hospital's isolation ward.

Medical officials said Cafferkey was the first observed case of the ebola virus lingering and later causing meningitis.

The World Health Organization called her the only known ebola survivor to develop meningitis months after contracting the virus.

When she was diagnosed with meningitis, University of Nottingham molecular virology professor Jonathan Ball called Cafferkey's case "frankly staggering."

"I am not aware from the scientific literature of a case where Ebola has been associated with what we can only assume as life-threatening complications after someone has initially recovered, and certainly not so many months after."

In a statement, Cafferkey expressed her appreciation for her second life-saving trip to the London hospital, saying, "For a second time, staff across many departments of the hospital have worked incredibly hard to help me recover and I will always be grateful to them and the [National Health Service]. I am looking forward to returning to Scotland and to seeing my family and friends again."

Now no longer infectious, she was transferred to a Glasgow hospital.