EU Wants Answers After Spanish Nurse’s Aide Contracts Ebola
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iStock/Thinkstock(MADRID) — Spanish health authorities reacted forcefully Tuesday after a nurse’s aide was found to have contracted Ebola, putting her in an isolation unit, quarantining her husband and two other people and getting a court order to euthanize the woman’s dog.
The case marked the first time the disease has been contracted outside of West Africa and has alarmed health workers throughout Europe.
The European Union has demanded an explanation from Spain by Wednesday as to how the health worker could have become infected and why “the hospital was not ready for Ebola patients.”
The 44-year-old Spanish patient, who has not been publicly identified, worked as the equivalent of a nurse’s aide at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital. She was part of a team that treated two missionaries who were repatriated from West Africa after contracting the disease.
Both have since died with reports that the nurse’s aide having contact at least twice with one of the missionaries.
Officials said the woman wasn’t feeling well for a week before she was admitted to the isolation unit. El Mundo Daily reported that it was the nurse who asked repeatedly to be tested for Ebola, before it was done on Monday.
Since her disease was diagnosed, her husband, who has no sign of disease, and two more people, including a colleague who treated one of the missionaries, are being monitored in the hospital in a bid to try to stop the spread of the deadly virus.
Meanwhile, the city of Madrid got a court order to euthanize and incinerate the woman’s dog over her and her husband’s objections. The dog is a mixed breed pooch named Excalibur.
Although the Spanish government said available scientific knowledge suggests a risk that the dog could transmit the virus to humans, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, remarked, “We have not identified this as means of transmission,” but declined to comment on the actions by Madrid officials.
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