The first case in the UK of a potentially fatal viral disease will not become an outbreak, health officials have stressed after the critically ill patient was moved to a specialist unit.
The Health Protection Agency has sought to reassure the public that the unnamed 38-year-old man with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever poses no risk to others.
"It can be acquired from an infected patient, but this requires direct contact with their blood or body fluids. Therefore, there is no risk to the general population," said a spokeswoman. The disease kills 30% of those who contract it. People with whom the man has been in close contact, including NHS staff treating him, are being monitored "as a precautionary measure", she added.
The man was diagnosed when he returned to Glasgow on Tuesday from Kabul, Afghanistan. He was initially treated in the city's Gartnavel hospital but was yesterday transferred by air to the national specialist centre for the management of infectious diseases at the Royal Free Hospital in London, where he is being treated in a sealed, high-security unit.
People who sat near the man on his flight to Britain via Dubai have also been contacted and are being monitored by officials.
