Spanish Nurse First To Contact Ebola Outside West Africa

A Spanish nurse who treated two Ebola victims at a Madrid hospital has tested positive for the disease, becoming the first to contract the virus outside of Africa, Spain’s health ministry said today “We’ve just heard from the Spanish Health Minister, Ana Mato, who has confirmed that a 44-year-old nurse has tested positive for the Ebola virus, and has confirmed that it is the first case of someone contracting that disease in Europe and outside of West Africa,” journalist Fiona Govan told FRANCE 24. The nurse was admitted to hospital with a high fever on Monday morning where an initial test showed she had contracted Ebola. “Then a second test also confirmed she [had been infected with] the deadly virus,” Govan said.Prior to falling ill, the nurse, who works at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital, had cared for two Ebola-infected men who had been repatriated to Spain after contracting the disease while working in West Africa. Both patients died from the virus. Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, 75, was infected with Ebola in Liberia and died at the Spanish hospital on August 12. Another Spanish missionary, Manuel Garcia Viejo, 69, was repatriated from Sierra Leone and died at the same hospital on September 25. Both were members of the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios, a Roman Catholic group that runs a charity working with Ebola victims in Africa. According to Govan, Spanish authorities have called on the public to stay calm, saying they are carefully monitoring those who have been in contact with the nurse in the past 10 days. The Ebola virus causes fever, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and sometimes internal and external bleeding. The current epidemic that has been ravaging West Africa is the worst outbreak of the disease yet, killing almost 3,500 people since the start of the year, with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone worst hit.