Shropshire Star

Pauline Cafferkey to return to Sierra Leone to seek ‘closure’ over Ebola ordeal

She said going back to Sierra Leone will be “psychologically important”.

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Ebola survivor Pauline Cafferkey is planning to return to Sierra Leone for the first time since she was struck down with with the killer virus.

The Scottish nurse said she hopes the fundraising trip in May will help to bring “closure” after a “terrible couple of years”.

Ms Cafferkey contracted Ebola in 2014 and has suffered a series of further health scares due to complications linked to the disease, at one stage falling critically ill.

The 41-year-old also faced disciplinary proceedings over events surrounding her return to the UK for which she was later cleared.

Nurse Pauline Cafferkey is transported to an RAF Hercules aircraft at Glasgow Airport before she is flown to London for treatment in 2016 (Andrew Milligan/PA)
Nurse Pauline Cafferkey is transported to an RAF Hercules aircraft at Glasgow Airport before she is flown to London for treatment in 2016 (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Speaking to the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme, she said going back to Sierra Leone will be “psychologically important”.

She said: “It’s where things kind of started for me and I’ve had a terrible couple of years since then. So it will be good to go back just for things to come full circle for me and a little bit of closure.

“Most people have been supportive if they know that I’m going back. I’ve had a few people, like family friends, who say ‘just be careful when you get back there’.”

Despite her experience Ms Cafferkey, who lives in Glasgow, said she was “excited” to go back and is “not going there with any trepidation”.

Pauline Cafferkey (Lisa Ferguson/Scotland on Sunday/PA)
Pauline Cafferkey (Lisa Ferguson/Scotland on Sunday/PA)

The nurse will take part in a 10km run during the fundraising trip for Street Child, a UK charity which helped youngsters affected by the epidemic.

It estimates around 12,000 children were left orphaned, with 1,400 still critically at-risk and struggling to survive.

Ms Cafferkey said she has the ordeal of contracting the virus in common with its African victims, although their experiences were “very different”.

“The Ebola patients in Sierra Leone didn’t know what they were going home to, or who was left alive in their family. They might be going back to sheer hell,” she said.

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