PRAYERS were said yesterday for the safe return of a North-east charity worker on the frontline of the battle against Ebola.

Paula Sansom has flown out to Sierra Leone to co-ordinate medical supplies for a new hospital being built in the capital Freetown to fight the terrifying epidemic gripping the country.

Speaking from her family home in Middleton St George, near Darlington, proud father Rodger Sansom said: “I am worried but I’m also very proud of her, I think she’s wonderful, but it’s her job.

“She’s not the only one, people are doing these things all over the world but it must be horrendous”.

The deadly disease has so far claimed 1200 lives in Sierra Leone and infected countless others, including William Pooley, the first British medic to catch Ebola, who last night bravely returned to Freetown to rejoin efforts to tackle the epidemic.

Miss Sansom, a veteran of several emergency relief operations caused by natural disasters and conflict across the globe, was given just two days notice for her latest mercy mission, to help set up a new 70-bed hospital.

Mr Sansom said: “She flew out about two weeks ago and we’ve heard from her three times since then. She says she’s fine but the work is quite exhausting. She will tell us everything when she gets back.”

“A lot of attention has been given to the military but there is another army of people who have gone out there to help with the outbreak, as brave or as silly as they are, and Paula is one of them.”

“When she said she wanted to do this type of work we did not know what it meant at first,” explained Mr Sansom, 69. “I said ‘you’ve got to do it now while you are young, never go on in life thinking I wish I’d gone for it, you just have to do it’.

Prayers that Miss Sansom, 47,who is based in London, will stay safe and healthy have been said for her by the congregation at St Laurence’s church, in Middleton St George.

Her stepmother Ruth, 64, said: “People are praying here as well as in other countries for her and for the whole project and that gives us strength.

“There are people walking around with Ebola who don’t yet know they have it, but she has to live there as well as work there.

“It’s horrific that it has a 70 per cent death rate but people who come back to western countries are taken very good care of”.

She added: “We don’t know how she will be quarantined or when she will be coming home but hopefully she’ll be back here for Christmas as usual”.

Nurse William Pooley, who became the first British victim of Ebola while saving lives in Sierra Leone, was last night due to touchdown in Freetown as he returns to work setting up new isolation units and training local staff to run them.

Speaking before flying out to Sierra Leone, the 29-year-old said: “The real emergency is in West Africa, and the teams out there need all the support we can give them.

"I am now looking forward to getting back out there and doing all I can to prevent as many unnecessary deaths as possible.

"I know my mum and dad are worried, but they support me because they know this is something I have to do”.