FULL RECOVERY

British Ebola Patient Discharged

Saved by experimental drug ZMapp.

William Pooley, the first British person to contract Ebola in the recent West Africa outbreak, has made a full recovery and been discharged from a special isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London. Pooley, a former volunteer nurse in Sierra Leone, was given the experimental drug ZMapp while he was in the early stages of the disease, before bleeding began. The treatment involves a 12-hour infusion of antibodies and has only been given to six other patients. “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,” Pooley said. “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.”