A man who arrived on a flight from Nigeria has been quarantined, as Spanish authorities Tuesday began investigating how a nurse who cared for two Spanish priests who died from Ebola herself came to be infected.
The female assistant nurse was part of a medical team that treated Manuel Garcia Viejo, a 69-year-old Spanish priest who died Sept. 25 at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital after contracting Ebola in Sierra Leone.
The nurse was also a member of a medical team that treated another Spanish priest who earlier died from Ebola, but it’s believed she contracted the virus from Viejo.
The Spanish nurse, the first person known to have contracted Ebola outside of West Africa, went on vacation the day after Viejo died but checked in Sunday to a public hospital in the Madrid suburb of Alcorcon with a fever and was placed in isolation.
Antonio Alemany, Madrid’s director of primary health care, told reporters Tuesday that the woman had no symptoms besides the fever and that authorities were drawing up a list of people the nurse had contact with so they can be monitored.
He did not say where the married woman with no children spent her vacation, nor did he specify whether health authorities are checking people who she came into contact with where she went for vacation.
The nurse’s husband and a second nurse are being quarantined. Other people who may have come into contact with the nurse are being monitored, although authorities gave no details on how they were being monitored.
Separately, European Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said Tuesday that Spain would need to provide “explanations” as to how the nurse got infected. A failure to follow medical protocol has not been ruled out.
No details about the nurse’s age or name have been formally released, but Spanish news reports said she is 44.
The World Health Organization estimates that the latest Ebola outbreak has killed more than 3,400 people, although it has also said that the true figure may be far higher due to unreported cases.
A Liberian national in Dallas, Texas, diagnosed with Ebola following a trip to West Africa was reported Monday to be in critical but stable condition at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.