Updated: 9.20 pm
THE WORLD HEALTH Organisation said this evening it is “quite unavoidable” that there will be future Ebola infections in Europe, as three people were quarantined in Spain.
Zsuzsanna Jakab, the WHO’s director in Europe, said this was due to “extensive travel” between the continent and Africa.
She added, however, that Europe was still at “low risk”, and that Western Europe was particularly well-equipped to deal with the disease, the Guardian reports.
THREE MORE PEOPLE were hospitalised in Madrid today for observation after a nurse there became the first person outside Africa to contract the deadly Ebola virus, health officials said.
Apart from the infected 40-year-old woman, doctors from La Paz-Carlos III hospital told a news conference that three other “suspect cases” had been admitted.
These included her husband who is considered at “high risk”, a second nurse and a man recently returned from abroad.
Yesterday, it was confirmed that a female nurse had tested positive for Ebola.
She had been part of the medical team which treated a 69-year-old priest for the disease at the La Paz-Carlos III hospital in Madrid.
Health officials are monitoring the people the nurse came into contact with.
The Madrid stock market sank today following the announcement of the first case of the Ebola virus outside of Africa, which weighed heavily on the airline and tourism sectors.
In Brussels today, an EU spokesman said the European Commission had written to the Spanish health ministry demanding an explanation.
The case followed a wake-up call on Ebola from US President Barack Obama, who warned on Monday that “some large countries are not doing enough” to tackle the epidemic
- - © AFP, 2014 with additional reporting Aoife Barry
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