British Ebola patient, William Pooley, has been discharged

The first British person to contract Ebola during the outbreak in West Africa has been discharged from hospital after making a full recovery.

William Pooley, 29, has been treated in a special isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Mr Pooley was given the experimental drug ZMapp and has praised the "world class" care at the hospital.

Mr Pooley was working as a volunteer nurse in one of the worst affected countries, Sierra Leone, when he contracted the virus.



He is unsure when he became infected, but started feeling sick and needed a blood test.

He recalled the moment his fears were confirmed: "I was woken early that evening by one of the World Health Organization doctors and immediately I knew it was bad news.

"I was worried that I was going to die, I was worried about my family and I was scared."
'Very lucky'

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Mr Pooley has been treated at a specialist isolation unit at London's Royal Free Hospital

He was flown back to the UK by the RAF on Sunday 24 August.
Mr Pooley was in the earlier stages of the disease. He had a high temperature but was not bleeding.

He said: "I was very lucky in several ways; firstly in the standard of care I received, which is a world apart from what people are receiving in West Africa at the moment.

"And my symptoms never progressed to the worst stage of the disease, I've seen people dying horrible deaths, I had some unpleasant symptoms, but nothing compared to the worst of the disease."

He was treated with the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp, a 12-hour infusion of antibodies, that has been given to only six other patients.

It is not clear if the infusion helped, but levels of the virus in his bloodstream did fall significantly after the treatment.

Mr Pooley praised the efforts of other people working on the ground.

"It's just heroic what they're doing, they know what might be facing them," he said.

"In the face of quite likely a horrible death, they're continuing to work all day, every day helping sick people, it's amazing."

He said it had felt "natural" to go and help in West Africa, that he had no regrets and was "more committed than ever to nursing".

Mr Pooley is heading back to Eyke in Suffolk with his family this afternoon.


"They incinerated my passport, so my mum will be pleased to know I can't go anywhere," he added.

Source: BBC