Fear of Ebola's growing reach as more Spaniards are placed in isolation
Three more people isolated for monitoring after infection of nurse in specialist unit; case has prompted questions over safety procedures
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 08 October, 2014, 4:17am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 08 October, 2014, 4:17am
Agence France-Presse in Madrid
Health workers protest outside La Paz Hospital calling for Health Minister Ana Mato to resign after a Spanish nurse contracted Ebola. Photo: Reuters
Fears grew yesterday that the Ebola epidemic was spreading outside Africa after three more people were isolated in Spain following the infection of a nurse in a Madrid hospital.
The EU demanded answers about how the disease could have spread in Spain's most specialist unit treating Ebola where the nurse cared for two elderly Spanish missionaries who died from the virus after being flown home from West Africa.
Ebola has been raging there since the beginning of the year, with nearly 3,500 confirmed deaths so far.
Tests confirmed that the nurse, 40, was the first person to contract the virus outside Africa.
Doctors said her husband was at "high risk" and had been admitted to the La Paz-Carlos III hospital, where the nurse worked. A man who recently returned from abroad was also being monitored there, as was one of the nurse's colleagues, who was suffering diarrhoea.
The infected nurse began to feel ill on September 30 while on leave after treating the two priests in the hospital's isolation unit. But she did not go to hospital until Sunday - five days later - complaining of a fever. She is being treated in the same unit.
A convoy takes a Spanish nurse believed to have contracted Ebola to hospital. She had treated a priest who died from the virus. Photo: AP
Health officials said they were trying to find out who she came into contact with, and were monitoring 30 people - including co-workers - for Ebola symptoms.
The infection also sparked questions about how safety procedures were applied when treating the two missionaries.
"People are freaked out," a cardiologist at the hospital said. "We cannot understand how someone who was wearing a double protection suit and two pairs of gloves could have been contaminated."
The cardiologist claimed Spain was not up to dealing with the haemorrhagic fever and questioned the decision to repatriate the missionaries.
The nurse had treated Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, 75, who was infected with Ebola in Liberia and died on August 12, as well as Manuel Garcia Viejo, 69, who was repatriated from Sierra Leone and died on September 25. Officials said she visited Viejo's room twice, once to clean him and then to collect material after his death.
The European Commission has written to the Spanish health authorities demanding an explanation.
Elena Moral, leader of the CSIF-AGCM public workers' union, told Spanish radio: "The precautionary measures that should have been taken were not effective. The necessary training was not given and we must find out who was responsible."
The head of primary healthcare for the Madrid region, Antonio Alemany, told a news conference late on Monday that the nurse, who is married with no children, was in a stable condition but still had a fever.
News of her infection sparked renewed questions about Madrid's decision to repatriate infected missionaries from Africa. Critics said the nation's hospitals were not adequately equipped to deal with Ebola.
"We are working to see if all the protocols which were established were strictly followed," Health Minister Ana Mato said. "Spain follows all the recommendations of the World Health Organisation."
The World Health Organisation's regional director said yesterday more cases of the virus were almost inevitable in Europe but the continent was well prepared to control the disease,
Speaking just hours after the case in Spain was confirmed, the WHO's European director, Zsuzsanna Jakab, admitted that further such events were "unavoidable".
Additional reporting by Reuters
