Ebola outbreak: Canada sends plane to Sierra Leone rescue scientists

The Public Health Agency of Canada says three scientists will be assessed by a quarantine officer and officers from Canada Border Services when their plane arrives back in the country. (Olivier Matthys/Associated Press

            

Canada is sending a charter plane to repatriate scientists who have been operating the country's mobile Ebola laboratory in Sierra Leone.

The Public Health Agency of Canada says the three scientists remain in good health and appear to be at low risk of having contracted the often deadly virus.

The agency announced late Tuesday that it was pulling the team from a World Health Organization outpost at Kailahun, in eastern Sierra Leone, after learning three people at their hotel complex tested positive for Ebola.

The agency says the three will be assessed by a quarantine officer and officers from Canada Border Services when their plane arrives back in the country.

Once they have been cleared for entry, they will travel to private residences where they will be in voluntary isolation for the remainder of the 21-day incubation period.

For privacy reasons the Public Health Agency is not releasing the names of the scientists and won't say when they will return