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 The nurse had helped to treat two priests who contracted Ebola in
Africa and were repatriated to Spain. Some 30 other health workers
and those who came in contact with her are now being monitored for
symptoms.
Both priests died shortly after reaching Spain. Each had worked in
West Africa, where an epidemic of Ebola has spread through Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia since March, killing more than 3,400 people
in the largest outbreak of the disease in history. Cases have also
reached Senegal and Nigeria.
Spanish officials said they still had to find out how the nurse, who
was not named but identified as married with no children, contracted
the viral infection, which causes fever and bleeding.
"At the moment we are investigating the way in which the
professional was infected," Antonio Alemany, the head of Madrid's
primary health care services told a news conference.
The nurse was one of a specialist team who treated elderly priest
Manuel Garcia Viejo at the Madrid hospital Carlos III when he was
repatriated from Sierra Leone with Ebola on Sept 21. He died four
days later.
Garcia Viejo was kept in isolation during his treatment last month
and officials said they followed a strict protocol designed to
protect health workers and patients at the hospital.
The nurse who has since fallen ill only entered Garcia Viejo's room
twice, once after his death, Alemany said.
Health authorities said she had also helped treat Miguel Pajares,
who had been working in Liberia when he came down with the disease.
He was airlifted back to Spain on Aug 7 and died five days later.
ON HOLIDAY
The Spanish nurse went on holiday immediately after Garcia's death
on Sept 25 and began feeling sick on Sept 30, said Alemany. He did
not say where the nurse went on holiday.
"We have started studying all of the contacts the patient had since
her symptoms began, including the health professionals who have been
treating her," Alemany said. The nurse's husband was also being
monitored, he said.
Scientists tracking the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and analyzing
air traffic data have predicted a high risk of a case being imported
unwittingly into Europe before the end of this month.
The first Ebola case to be diagnosed in the United States was
identified last week in a man from Liberia, who U.S. health
officials say is now in a critical condition.
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The Geneva-based WHO said it was notified of the Spanish case at
around 3:00 p.m. EDT on Monday.
"This was a preliminary notification and Spain is doing an intensive
investigation into the mode of transmission and into the contacts of
the nurse," a WHO spokeswoman said.
Patients are at their most contagious when Ebola is in its terminal
stages, inducing both internal and external bleeding, and profuse
vomiting and diarrhea - all of which contain high concentrations of
infectious virus.
But the disease can also have a long incubation period - up to 21
days - meaning that people can be unaware for weeks that they are
infected, and not feel or display any symptoms.
Virologist Benjamin Neuman of the Britain's University of Reading
said health workers always face risks handling Ebola patients
regardless of whether they used protective equipment.
"Nurses face a problem in that a person who is sick with Ebola can
make quite a lot of highly infectious waste, as the patient loses
fluid through diarrhea and vomiting," he said.
"Those bodily fluids can contain millions of Ebola viruses, and it
only takes one to transfer the infection."
The nurse, who was initially treated for fever symptoms at the
hospital of Alcorcon, in the outskirts of Madrid, was due to be
transferred later on Monday to the Madrid hospital Carlos III where
Garcia Viejo was treated.
She is in a stable condition, health officials said.
(Additional reporting by Carlos Ruano and Sarah White in Madrid and
Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Julien Toyer, Larry King)
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