MP Off Grid Living: Ebola Spain: Four people now being monitored for Ebola after Nurse contracted virus

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Ebola Spain: Four people now being monitored for Ebola after Nurse contracted virus | NBC/Reuters

Ebola Spain Update:

07.10.2014

A second nurse who also treated the missionary was put under quarantine after reporting diarrhea, but she did not have a fever, the most common early symptom of #Ebola, health officials said.

#EbolaSpain

Four People Monitored in Spain on Suspicion of Ebola

MADRID — Four people, including the nurse who tested for Ebola on Monday, were hospitalized and being monitored over suspicion of potential contagion of the deadly disease, Spain's health authorities said on Tuesday. Officials for Madrid's health system told a news conference those hospitalized included the nurse's husband, a traveler from Nigeria and another health worker.

Officials also said the nurse, who did not leave Madrid during her vacations, was currently being treated with drip using antibodies from previous infected patients.

It was confirmed Monday that the nurse, who had cared for an Ebola patient who contracted the virus in Sierra Leone, was the victim of the first known transmission outside West Africa during the current epidemic.
— Reuters

First published October 7th 2014, 6:02 am

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/four-people-monitored-spain-suspicion-ebola-n219951
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/07/us-health-ebola-spain-idINKCN0HW0VY20141007

Why Spanish nurse is such a troubling Ebola case

A Spanish nurse infected with Ebola is moved to Carlos III Hospital from Alcorcon Hospital, Oct. 7, 2014 in Alcorcon, Spain. GETTY

Last Updated Oct 7, 2014 6:38 AM EDT

NEW YORK -- In a case underscoring the perils of caring for Ebola patients, a nurse in Spain has come down with the disease -- the first time someone has caught the disease outside West Africa during the current epidemic.

The nurse was part of the medical team that treated a 69-year-old Spanish priest, Manuel Garcia Viejo, who died in a Madrid hospital late last month, Spain's health minister said Monday.

Spain's head of public health, Mercedes Vinuesa, told parliament Tuesday that the nurse's husband was also taken into quarantine, according to the Reuters news agency, but it wasn't immediately clear whether he was showing signs of infection himself, or if the move was just a precaution.

Officials at the hospital in Madrid where the nurse was being treated said 22 people she had come into contact with had been identified and were being monitored. Spanish officials said two other people had been admitted to hospital and quarantined with symptoms which raised fears of possible Ebola infection.

The sick priest had been flown home from his post in Sierra Leone; the nurse is believed to have contracted the virus from him. She went to a Madrid hospital with a fever Sunday, 10 days after the priest died, and was placed in isolation. She was transferred early Tuesday to Madrid's Carlos III hospital, where the priest -- and a second missionary priest sick with Ebola -- were cared for until they died.

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Nurse in Spain confirmed with Ebola

The World Health Organization confirmed there has not been a previous transmission outside West Africa in the current outbreak.

According to Reuters, an official at the Carlos III hospital said the nurse was being given antibodies via a drip from a previous Ebola patient in the country.

The nurse's illness illustrates the danger that health care workers face not only in poorly equipped West African clinics, but also in the more sophisticated medical centers of Europe and the United States, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.