Spain: The First Locally Acquired Ebola Infection in Europe


A health care worker in Spain is the first individual outside of Africa to locally acquire an Ebola infection.  A nurse treating an Ebola case in a Madrid hospital in September has tested positive for Ebola (link). The nature of transmission from the Ebola patient to the nurse has not yet been reported.  The reports from the Ebola outbreak in Africa show that health care workers are frequently infected and die from treating Ebola patients (link). It was widely assumed that health care workers in the West Africa countries became infected because of lack of adequate PPE, proper training, and overwhelmed facilities. This new case in a European hospital raises concerns about the nature of Ebola transmission in hospital settings everywhere in the world.   

The Ebola case in Texas, USA, will provide an additional test of the nature of transmission of this virus (link). So far no secondary cases have been reported in Texas. It will be several more weeks before Texas can claim no additional secondary cases of Ebola.   

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