The latest Ebola outbreak has killed more than 3,000 in West Africa, including health workers. However, in Spain, a 40-year-old nurse assistant contracted the virus even if she hasn't set foot in the African region.
In a press conference on October 6, Monday, Ana Mato, Spain's health minister, confirmed that a nursing assistant working in Carlos III Hospital acquired the virus after she became part of the team tasked to take care of Ebola patients.
Spain has already accommodated two known Ebola cases. The 75-year-old priest Miguel Pajares was flown from Liberia to Spain, where he later died on August 12. More than a month after, 69-year-old Manuel Garcia Viejo, contracted the disease in Sierra Leone where he worked as a hospital medical director. He later died in Spain on September 25. The nurse had exposed herself to the virus in both instances. She met the latter twice including once when he died.
Mato, moreover, confirmed that the nurse took a holiday leave after the recent Ebola death in the hospital. She developed fever on September 30 but waited until October 5, Sunday, to seek treatment. She underwent two tests, both of which came back positive for the virus. She is currently under isolation and treatment in a Spanish suburb, where her condition is described as stable.
Meanwhile, the health department of Spain is actively seeking every person she may have come into contact with since September 30, and they already had 30 people under close monitoring, including her husband and hospital colleagues. She does not have any children.
This newest Ebola transmission raised a lot of concerns since Spain is viewed as a developed nation and thus supposed to have strict compliance and healthcare practices regarding prevention of Ebola spread.
Around the same time the nurse contracted Ebola, a Liberian man traveling to the United States was also diagnosed with the virus. Eric Thomas Duncan came from Monrovia but visited his family and friends in the United States, arriving in Dallas on September 19. A few days after, he developed symptoms but only obtained the treatment when these signs got worse including vomiting outside the apartment he was staying. He is in critical condition but has been receiving an experimental drug.