An Army Reservist who contracted Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone was discharged from a London hospital yesterday after becoming the first patient in the world to be treated with an experimental drug.
Corporal Anna Cross, 25, said that she had been treated by an “absolutely incredible bunch of clinicians” at the Royal Free Hospital. “Thanks to them I’m alive,” she added. She is the first person in the world to be treated with the experimental drug MIL 77 after being brought back to the UK by the RAF on March 12.
Nurses Pauline Cafferkey and Will Pooley – the only other Britons to have tested positive for the disease – were also treated at the Royal Free and both made full recoveries.
Cpl Cross, from Cambridge, told a press conference at the hospital that she was on the flight home with a “fantastic RAF team” within 24 hours of being diagnosed. She said it was “weird” receiving her initial treatment at the same Kerry Town treatment centre that she had been caring for patients at, but being looked after by her colleagues “gave me such confidence because they’re total professionals”.
She has no idea how she contracted the deadly virus
“I had treated a patient that was in the facility, and then the next day I was sat with them,” she added. It was nice in a sense because I felt like we were having the same experience and we were both being treated to the same standard. It was odd because I had seen patients who got really sick and had died but he was doing really well, which was encouraging for me.”
She described the team at the Royal Free as the “best in the world” at treating the disease.
Cpl Cross also praised the NHS, for which she works as an intensive care nurse, as well as the Army.
“If it wasn’t for both of those institutions I wouldn’t be here today,” she said.
She joined the Army Reserves in 2013 as a staff nurse and went to Sierra Leone last month.
Cpl Cross said she cried when she found out she was free of the virus and joked that eating strawberries had helped her through it.
Although she is now Ebola-free she said it will take a “long time” before she is fully fit. She lost 10kg during the illness but attributed her recovery to her high level of fitness due to be in the military.
She has no idea how she contracted the deadly virus and an investigation at the treatment centre failed to find this out.
Cpl Cross, joking that she was grateful for the long career of David Attenborough, whose documentaries she has been watching in hospital, added that her family were “thrilled” at her recovery.
Infectious diseases specialist Dr Michael Jacobs said it was impossible to say on the basis of treating one patient what role MIL 77 had played and what effects it might have on others. “But what I can tell you is that the treatment went very well,” he told reporters. “It caused no side effects that we were able to illicit and we were very happy with its use.”