Sky News reports on Tuesday afternoon that Cafferkey is set to be taken to the Royal Free hospital in north London, where she and previous other Ebola sufferers have been treated.
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Study’s lead author Dr. Lauren Bowen, from the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said that they have assessed the health of 82 Ebola survivors in Liberia, one of the three West African countries facing crisis in the 2014 Ebola pandemic. Four were excluded because of other conditions.
Last year, the Royal Free Hospital had said Cafferkey had made a full recovery from Ebola and was no longer infectious. The average age of the Ebola survivors is 35. The most common ongoing problems they experienced were weakness, headache, memory loss, depressed mood and muscle pain.
Two of the survivors were suicidal and one had hallucinations, according to the study.
Doctors also found survivors commonly had abnormal eye movements and tremors. Controls are in the process of being evaluated to determine which of these findings are Ebola-specific. Conclusions were drawn from the Prevail III study, an ongoing study that is following former Ebola patients and their close contacts, who serve as study controls.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported in March 2014, and rapidly became the deadliest occurrence of the disease since its discovery in 1976.
11,300 people have succumbed to the disease, while the rest have managed to pull through, but it appears even they remain shaken and frail after facing this life-threatening illness. We wanted to find out more about possible continued long-term brain health problems for the more than 17,000 survivors of the infection.
The research, which will be presented at the annual meeting of American Academy of Neurology, forms part of a wider study into the long-term health effects of the virus.
British nurse Pauline Cafferkey has been transported by an RAF Hercules to London having been admitted to hospital for a third time since contracting Ebola.
Experts have previously suggested that Ebola relapses might be triggered by the immune system, when the body gets distracted fighting another infection.
She was discharged from the Royal Free Hospital in London in November.
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The researchers said there is not enough known about these problems to say with certainty which of them might be due to Ebola.
