Investigations are under way at a hospital in
Madrid after a Spanish nurse became the first
person known to have contracted the deadly
Ebola virus outside West Africa, BBC reports..
The nurse had treated two Spanish missionaries
who died of the disease after being flown home
from the region.
Three other people, including the nurse’s
husband, have been quarantined.
The European Commission has asked Spain to
explain how the nurse could have become
infected.
Some 3,400 people have died in the outbreak,
mostly in West Africa.
The Spanish auxiliary nurse, a 40-year-old
woman, who has not been named, was one of
about 30 staff at the Carlos III hospital in
Madrid who had been treating priests Manuel
Garcia Viejo and Miguel Pajares, officials say.
Mr. Garcia Viejo, 69, died at the hospital on
September 25 after contacting Ebola in Sierra
Leone. Mr Pajares, 75, died in August after
contracting the virus in Liberia.
The nurse had twice gone into the room where
Viejo had been treated, to be directly involved
in his care and to disinfect the room after his
death. Both times she was wearing protective
clothing.
Madrid healthcare director Antonia Alemany
told reporters that according to the
information available, “The nurse went into the
room wearing the individual protection gear
and there’s no knowledge of an accidental
exposure to risk.”
Shortly afterwards the nurse went on holiday,
a hospital spokesman said, but fell ill on
September 30 and was admitted to Alcorcon
hospital in South-West Madrid on Sunday after
being tested positive for Ebola.
The Ebola case was down to “procedure
problem or human error,” says a Spanish
public health expert.
The Spanish health authorities said the nurse
was being treated with a drip using antibodies
from previous Ebola patients.
Her husband and a second nurse who treated
the missionary are now in quarantine, officials
said, as well as a man who recently arrived on
a flight from Nigeria.


source: http://www.punchng.com/news/spain-investigates-new-evd-case/#comments