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Report: Spanish Nurse First To Contract Ebola Outside Africa

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A Spanish nurse who treated an Ebola victim in Madrid tested positive for the virus on Monday, according to BBC News.

Several Spanish media sources reported that sources within Spain’s health authority had reported that the nurse initial tested positive for Ebola but that officials are waiting for final results before announcing the development, Reuters reports.

The nurse would be the first patient to contract the disease outside of Africa. While there have been several confirmed cases of Ebola in Europe and the U.S., all patients up to the point were originally infected in Africa and brought the disease elsewhere.

Health care workers are at especially high risk for infection. Dallas hospital and ambulance workers who treated the U.S.’s first Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, account for seven of ten people the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has singled out to be quarantined and monitored for signs of the disease. (RELATED: White House Trying To Get Ahead Of Ebola Fear)

Several American Ebola patients have been transferred while already in isolation for treatment in U.S. hospitals. Duncan is the first confirmed patient who traveled to the U.S. with Ebola outside of isolation. (RELATED: In 2010 Obama Administration Scrapped CDC Quarantine Regulates Aimed At Ebola)

 

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