Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey reveals she will return to Sierra Leone for first time since contracting deadly disease
Ms Cafferkey worked as a volunteer in the West African country in 2014 when an epidemic killed almost 4,000 people
EBOLA nurse Pauline Cafferkey has revealed her plans to return to Sierra Leone - the region where she caught the disease.
Ms Cafferkey worked as a volunteer in the West African country in 2014 when an epidemic killed almost 4,000 people.
This will be her first return since falling ill and is to raise funds for children orphaned by the disease and people who survived it.
The 41-year-old nurse who lives in Glasgow said the trip would give her "closure in a positive way".
She told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme it would be "psychologically important for me to go back".
She said: "That's where things started for me and I've had a terrible couple of years since then, so it'd be good to go back and have things come full circle for me.
"It'll be a little bit of closure, and I want to end it with something good, something positive."
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After contracting and recovering from Ebola, Ms Cafferkey a series of further health scares due to complications linked to the disease, at one stage falling critically ill.
She was readmitted to hospital three times - in October 2015 and February and October 2016 - after doctors said she was no longer infectious and had recovered.
Ms Cafferkey also faced disciplinary proceedings over events surrounding her return to the UK, for which she was later cleared.
The at Heathrow Airport as she returned to the UK from Sierra Leone was suspended last month.
Now working as a health visitor support nurse in South Lanarkshire, she is returning to Sierra Leone - where Ebola has since been eradicated - to raise funds for UK charity Street Child.
She will take part in a 10km run during the fundraising trip.
She will be returning to Sierra Leone with two other NHS nurses who also volunteered with her, Sharon Irvine and Alison Fellowes.
They all met in that country, have since become good friends, and all three are taking part in the run.
Ms Cafferkey added: "It'll be great to see Sierra Leone in a different state, and also know that I might be able to help as well. We weren't allowed to travel around it last time."
"I had massive support from family and friends and could get medical and psychological support.
"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.
"What we went through was very different."
Street Child - whose recent advocates include Ed Sheeran and Russell Howard - provides shelter and education for homeless children.
During the 2013-2016 Ebola crisis which swept Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, more than 28,000 cases were reported, resulting in over 11,000 deaths.
Ms Cafferkey, a nurse of 16 years who had carried out aid work, travelled to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to volunteer at an Ebola treatment centre with Save The Children in 2014.
It is estimated that 12,000 children were orphaned in Sierra Leone by the epidemic and 1,400 of those orphans remain "critically at risk" regarding their health and security.
Despite her battle with Ebola Ms Cafferkey she was "excited" to go back and is "not going there with any trepidation".
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