UK woman dies from Ebola

Wow this reads alot like Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone"


A WOMAN who arrived in London on a flight from Africa yesterday is reported to have died from the deadly and contagious ebola virus.

Panic has spread among cabin crew and hospital staff after the death of the 38-year-old Briton.

The unnamed woman is understood to work at an embassy in the African kingdom of Lesotho.

Before boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow she visited a doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms.

She was allowed to fly, but during Flight VS602 to the UK she suffered a violent fit which left her unconscious.

Cabin crew and passengers rushed to her aid but towards the end of the flight she began to vomiting.

Rest of article here: www.mirror.co.uk...=17105921&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=killer-bug-air-scare--name_page.html

They are issuing warnings to the cabin crew to monitor their health for any onset of symptoms that Ebola presents.

In the book The Hot Zone the same scenerio plays out. A gentleman gets on a plane with flu like symptoms, vomits the virus in the plane and winds up infecting those that tried to help him.

Scary to think just how easily things have the ability lto travel via one person.
I hope everyone else will be ok.

I saw this article over the weekend. Strangely, there hasn't been any additional coverage since the earliest articles. Has anyone heard anything more about it? Are any of our UK ATSers near this hospital? Any news?

Given the fact that I live in London and I have no desire to start bleeding from various orifaces, I will take a look.

That was one of the things I noticed too. This happened or was reported on May 20th. You would think that everyone on the flight could potentially have been exposed so why no further reports at least to ally fears?

From what I understand of the virus is that if she were to cough she potentially coughed the virus into the air so the potential for exposure could be great.

No further coverage beyond saturday's Daily Mirror article, which makes it look as if the story doesn't have the legs to go far. Two important things - an autopsy is yet to be carried out, so there is no cause of death, and secondly she came from Lesotho, which as far as I know is not in the ebola zone, which is a lot further north towards the Congo. Panic over, hopefully.

Ebola is sopread with direct contact with an infoected person's fluids. There is limited evidence it may spread via airborne means. But on the plane she was vomiting and bleeding so there was certainly some contact with fluids.

You're right Dark, it isn't in the 'hot zone'. Ebola rarely spreads far from its point of origin because everyone dies too quickly to get anywhere and traditionally the peoples affected aren't normally capable of long distance travel. If this actually turns out to be Ebola it will be the first time it has successfully travelled outside of Africa. Oddly, Ebola's lethality is what protects us from widespread outbreaks. If this case is real it could be a troubling new aspect to the disease.

the hospital in question (ie I passed it twice last week) I will try a search of the local press as well.

No I actually found another article here:

Saturday, 20 May 2006 10:31
BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
WOMAN COULD HAVE DIED FROM THE DEADLY AND CONTAGIOUS EBOLA VIRUS

Panic has spread among cabin crew and hospital staff after the death of the 38-year-old unnamed woman.

The woman was on the Virgin Atlantic flight VS602 from Johannesburg. It is understood she worked at an embassy in Lesotho.

She had visited a doctor before the flight complaining of flu symptoms and was told she could fly.

But during the trip, she suffered a fit that knocked her unconscious.


Sorry forgot the link:www.bnn-online.co.uk...



Cabin crew and passengers passed her drinks and did all they could to help. At around 3am, she started to vomit heavily and began bleeding.


It goes on to give a little more info to the state of the persons on the plane. Although true it's still pending autopsy. It presents like Ebola or at the very least Marburg.

[edit on 22-5-2006 by DDay]

Opps let's try that again


www.bnn-online.co.uk...

You beat me to that one

heres the link BNN

S##T...EBOLA IN LONDON!!!
Well i live in london and this is the first ive heard about it
If she did have a seizure on the plane then there is a good (bad) possiblity that some form of body fluids were emitted.

I thought that this killer disease was air-born? and if so before she had the seizure she would have coughed and spat (not on purpose) prior to passing out, and therfore it would have become air-born (please correct me if im wrong).

its true as far as i know that this disease has not got passed the continent of africa but depending on how far along gthe incubation she was it seems that it was enough time for her to board a plane and land in London , where God forbid the disease has spread?

does anyone know what the Incubation period is |?
has anyone got anymore info?

Has it landed in the uk and thats why the newsblackout.....mass panic?

I would hazard a guess that this is a non story - nothing localy has been said and given the location of the hospital I would think the story would be pretty important round here.

A user of another forum who works for the health service e-mailed both the hospital and Virgin Atlantic and the replies indicate that ebola was not the cause of death in this case. I didn't realise that people still mistake the Mirror for a credible news outlet.
www.curevents.com...