The Spanish nurse who became the first patient diagnosed with Ebola infection outside West Africa in Europe has just tested negative twice, as shared by her attending physician in Carlos III Hospital, where she's staying in a high-security isolation unit, on Tuesday, October 20.
Forty-four-year-old Teresa Romero was officially diagnosed with the virus during her holiday in the country. She first developed fever and checked herself in a hospital in the suburb before she was taken to Carlos III Hospital in Madrid, where she also worked.
Romero has contracted the disease after caring for two patients that had been brought from Africa to Spain for treatment. Both had died.
She had already undergone two virus tests with 48-hour difference, and both came back negative. Based on the guidelines of the World Health Organization, she can already be declared virus free. However, since the effects of the virus can still get complicated, including substantial damage to her vital organs like the liver and kidney, she will continue to stay in the hospital.
Although the doctors provided limited information of the treatment protocol they employed on Romero, they used a blood serum with antibodies from previous Ebola survivors as well as a cocktail of drugs whose names they didn't share.
Meanwhile, all primary and secondary contacts of Ramos are also still in isolation in the same hospital, although so far, they remain symptom free. One of these people include her husband, who, in a letter, criticized the government for failing to train health workers properly and called on the resignation of the health minister.
This news is definitely a welcome change at a time when the entire world seems on edge. The virus has already killed more than 4,000 people in three West African countries. Over 9,000 cases have already been reported, and the number may increase to 10,000 a week, based on the worst-case scenario model of World Health Organization.