Nurse with Ebola improves significantly

Ebola-hit nurse Pauline Cafferkey "has made a significant improvement" after being critically ill with meningitis, doctors have said.

Her physician, Dr Michael Jacobs of the Royal Free Hospital, said: "I know you will have been very concerned about her since she was re-admitted to the Royal Free Hospital here.

"She was very keen that we share the information in order to help other people who have survived Ebola and that are caring for the survivors of Ebola.

"Pauline has become unwell with meningitis caused by the Ebola virus. She hasn't been reinfected with the Ebola virus.

"This is the original Ebola virus that she had many months ago which has been inside the brain replicating at a very low level and has now re-emerged to cause this clinical illness.

"Pauline became very unwell with this a few days ago - she became critically ill with neurological complications of the meningitis.

"I'm really pleased to tell you that in the last few days she has made a significant improvement.

"She is much better now and to paint a picture of her improvement, she is inside our isolation unit still in bed all the time but she is talking freely with the staff and having conversations, beginning to use the iPad and beginning to eat a little.

"We are delighted with the progress she has made."

Ms Cafferkey was flown from Glasgow to London by a military plane on 9 October after an "unusual late complication" caused her to fall ill again.

The nurse contracted the disease after treating patients in Sierra Leone at the height of the outbreak which has killed more than 11,000 people.

She was first treated at the Royal Free Hospital in December and discharged in January after it was thought she had recovered from the virus.

Dr Derek Gatherer, from Lancaster University, has previously told Sky News that people who fight off Ebola produce antibodies that "kill off the virus in most bodily fluids".

But he added: "In areas of the body where the immune system is not particularly active - one of these is the central nervous system ... the Ebola virus can survive in very small quantities."