UK nurse has meningitis caused by persisting disease -doctors

October 21, 2015 4:27 PM

Cafferkey was transferred from the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow to an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London on Oct. 9 and was last week described by her doctors as critically ill.

UK Ebola nurse has meningitis caused by persisting Ebola -doctors

A Scottish nurse who contracted and initially recovered from Ebola, but then suffered a relapse, has meningitis caused by the virus in her brain, doctors treating her said on Wednesday.

Pauline Cafferkey was not reinfected with the Ebola virus, doctors said, but it had persisted in her body since her initial recovery and re-emerged to cause complications in her brain.

"The virus re-emerged around the brain and around the spinal column to cause meningitis," said Michael Jacobs, an infectious diseases consultant who has been treating Cafferkey in London.

Cafferkey was transferred from the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow to an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London on Oct. 9 and was last week described by her doctors as critically ill.

Jacobs said on Wednesday that she had made a "significant improvement" and was talking and eating a little, but still faced a long recovery and would remain in hospital for now.