Spanish nurse first to contract Ebola outside Africa

Spanish health officials are scrambling to find those people who may have come into contact with a nurse diagnosed with the Ebola virus. The nurse helped treat two patients who died from the disease at a Madrid hospital.

Nurse in Spain is first person to catch Ebola in Europe
Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato announced in a press conference on Monday that two tests had confirmed that the nurse had been infected with Ebola, which has killed more than 3,400 people in West Africa.
Mato said health officials were already monitoring 30 people, including the nurse's husband and coworkers, for symptoms of the disease and were seeking to find out who else she may have been in contact with since developing the symptoms a few days ago.

Jorge Marirrodriga reports from Madrid

The 40-year-old nurse checked into hospital in the Madrid suburb of Alcorcon on Sunday, despite having started to feel ill several days earlier. She was quickly placed in isolation, and the Associated Press reported that she had been transferred early on Tuesday to Madrid's Carlos III hospital, where she had helped treat two elderly Spanish missionaries who died of Ebola shortly after being brought home from Africa.

Questions raised

Health officials said they were investigating how the nurse could have become infected, as she had access to special equipment meant to protect health workers from the disease.

"We are working to see if all the protocols which were established were strictly followed," said Mato. "Spain follows all the recommendations of the World Health Organization."

Ebola's symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea and sometimes internal and external bleeding. It is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has the virus.
pfd/crh (dpa, AFP, AP)

It has begun.

The operative and relevant part of that article, Laz:

The nurse helped treat two patients who died from the disease at a Madrid hospital.

Not to say it isn't concerning, especially the fact that they're seemingly making no attempt to screen people arriving from West Africa...

But the stuff in Spain isn't terribly alarming. I've lived in Spain, it isn't a 1st-world country. The medical facilities there aren't on par with England, France, Germany, or the US.

If you mean the media-fueled panicky overreaction, then yes, it absolutely has.

Just wait until the marginally-tested but absolutely mandatory vaccine becomes available...

Definitely.

I was joking, FYI.

big_daddy will be first in line

I figured you might have been, but it's a CP DC tradition to respond to jokes and seriousness with equal indignation, so I went for it.

Also, considering your username . . . :hmmm:

LMAO

When Ebola mutates and joines forces with Aids & the flu, you ****ers are all gonna be dead.

Ebolaids Flu

Game changer.

Transferred exclusively by mouth to manflute.

Is all good, all married men will be safe.

I wish they would develope a procedure that would prevent these deadly diseases from leaving the original area....basically a containment protocol to ensure that it can't jump from country to country via the airlines. I don't think this is going to be a major world wide epidemic but I think we should use occurences like Ebola now and Swine Flu from a few years ago as a way to put systems in place.

This...

Texas nurse who had worn protective gear tests positive for Ebola
By Elizabeth Cohen, Steve Almasy and Joe Sutton, CNN
updated 4:54 PM EDT, Sun October 12, 2014

NEW: A "close contact" of the nurse is being monitored, says CDC
The worker helped care for an Ebola patient multiple times, CDC director says
He says there was a breach in protocol and his agency is investigating
Nurse was wearing protective gear when she helped care for Thomas Eric Duncan

(CNN) -- The deadly Ebola virus has been contracted by someone inside the United States for the first time.

A nurse who had worn protective gear during her "extensive contact" at a Dallas hospital with an Ebola patient who died tested positive during a preliminary blood test, officials said Sunday.

The woman had on a gown, gloves, mask and a shield during her multiple visits with Thomas Eric Duncan, but there was a breach in protocol, health officials said.

The patient is a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, an official who is familiar with the case told CNN.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta conducted testing on the blood sample, and confirmed the results Sunday, marking the first known transmission of Ebola in the United States and the second diagnosis in the country.

CDC: Protocol 'breach' led to infection Hospital: Worker wore protective gear Are U.S. hospitals prepared for Ebola? Second confirmed Ebola case in U.S.
She was involved in Duncan's care after he was placed in isolation -- his second trip to the hospital after coming to the United States from Liberia -- said Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the CDC.

The nurse is in stable condition, Texas Health Resources chief clinical officer Dan Varga said. Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died Wednesday.

The nurse had "extensive contact" on "multiple occasions" with Duncan, Frieden said.

"At some point, there was a breach in protocol, and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection," he said at a news conference Sunday. "The (Ebola treatment) protocols work. ... But we know that even a single lapse or breach can result in infection."

Also, Varga said that someone who is a "close contact" of the nurse has been "proactively" placed in isolation.

The hazardous materials unit of the Dallas Fire Department has cleaned up and decontaminated the public areas of the health worker's apartment complex, Mayor Mike Rawlings said. Police are keeping people out of the area and are talking to residents nearby.

"We have knocked on every door on that block," the mayor said.
Hazardous materials units have also cleaned out the nurse's car and will work on her apartment Sunday.

"This development is understandably disturbing news for the patient, the patient's family and colleagues and the greater Dallas community," the CDC said in a statement, announcing the nurse's test results.
It sought to play down a wider risk.

"The CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services remain confident that wider spread in the community can be prevented with proper public health measures, including ongoing contact tracing, health monitoring among those known to have been in contact with the index patient, and immediate isolations if symptoms develop," the CDC said.

Complete coverage on the Ebola outbreak - http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/12/health/ebola/index.html