The Scottish nurse who contracted Ebola while volunteering at a treatment centre in Sierra Leone last year has made a “significant improvement” after her condition improved from “critically ill” to “serious but stable”.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Dr Michael Jacobs from the Royal Free Hospital in London confirmed Cafferkey had not been reinfected but the virus had caused her to develop meningitis, ITV News reported.
"I'm really pleased to tell you that in the last few days she has made a significant improvement," he said.
Jacobs said the 39-year-old still had a long recovery ahead of her, but staff were delighted with her progress.
In a statement on Monday afternoon, the hospital had previously said: "We are able to announce that Pauline Cafferkey's condition has improved to serious but stable."
The nurse, who's from Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, was first diagnosed with the virus on 29 December 2014. After she returned to the UK, her condition deteriorated, and on 4 January, the hospital announced that she had become critically ill.
She stayed in a high-level isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital for nearly a month before being discharged. Jacobs said at the time that she made a complete recovery and was "not infectious in any way".
Earlier this month, Cafferkey was readmitted to a specialist isolation unit after feeling unwell. On 14 October, the Royal Free released a statement saying that her condition had "deteriorated" and that she was "critically ill" due to "an unusual late complication of her previous infection by the Ebola virus".
In a previous statement, the hospital sought to reassure the public that the Ebola virus could only be transmitted by direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids of an infected person and that the "risk to the general public remains low".