The graph above will have to be changed because Spain now has 4 cases.
Health officials in Madrid say three more people are in the hospital on
suspicion of contracting Ebola. The news comes a day after a nurse who treated
two Ebola patients at a city hospital became infected with the disease. One has
tested negative.
The nurse is now being treated with a drip using
antibodies from those previously infected with the virus. Approximately 22
people who have been in contact with the woman, dubbed by media the
"Spanish Ebola nurse," have been identified and are being monitored,
Madrid health officials said Tuesday.
The officials added that the hospitalized include the
nurse's husband, another health worker and a traveler who had spent time in one
of the affected West African countries. One of the hospitalized - the female health
worker- was reported to have tested negative for Ebola late on Tuesday,
according to a health source in Spain. She had displayed only one potential
symptom - diarrhea - but was not running a fever.
Spain's Public Health director, Mercedes Vinuesa, told
parliament that authorities were compiling a list of everyone who had come in
contact with the nurse so that they could be monitored.
Vinuesa said Spain had several treatments available and
was employing them Monday. The unidentified nurse is reportedly in stable
condition.
The 44-year-old woman is the first known person to have become infected
with Ebola outside of Africa during the current outbreak. Other cases in Spain – and recently, the US – involved
individuals contracting the disease while in Africa and then traveling back to
their home countries. The
nurse had reportedly helped treat a Spanish missionary and a Spanish priest,
both of whom came down with the virus while in West Africa and later died after returning to Spain.
There is currently no proven known cure or human-safe vaccine
for Ebola, which is spread via bodily fluids. Initial symptoms of fever and
sore throat develop into vomiting, diarrhea and profuse internal and external
bleeding. Victims may die of multiple organ failure within days of first
contact, with some strains killing up to 90 percent of sufferers.
The latest
outbreak first struck the West African state of Guiana in December 2013. World
Health Organization (WHO) officials, however, did not become aware the disease
was raging in the country's south until March 23, 2014. It has since spread to neighboring Senegal, Liberia and
Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Due to a rapid response by authorities in Nigeria and
Senegal, infections in both states combined were kept below two dozen.
Apart from Spain, the United
States is the only other non-African country to register a case of Ebola. On
September 20, an infected man traveling from Liberia arrived in Dallas, Texas.
He reportedly started exhibiting symptoms of the disease 4 days later. US
health officials are currently monitoring 10 quarantined people who had contact
with the man, who remains in critical condition.
The WHO has reported a total of 7,493 Ebola infections
worldwide. At least 3,439 people are estimated to have died after contracting
the disease.
In September, the
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that 1.4 million people
could contract Ebola by the end of January barring drastic attempts to head off
the spread of infection.
Staff at the
hospital said waste from the rooms of both patients had been carried out in the
same elevator used by all personnel. The
hospital was also reportedly not evacuated when the second patient, García
Viejo, was taken in to receive treatment.
Union workers also accused the government of providing
hospital staff with inadequate protective clothing.
Some Spanish health workers' representatives said the
situation should prompt an overhaul of procedures and facilities used to treat
those afflicted with the virus.
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