Nurse Treats Missionary, Gets Ebola

Spanish woman is 1st to contract disease outside of Africa
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 6, 2014 3:35 PM CDT
Nurse Infected With Ebola in Spain
In this photo taken in 2013, Spanish priest Manuel Garcia Viejo poses in the San Juan de Dios Hospital in the city of Lunsar in Sierra Leone where he worked.   (AP Photo/San Juan de Dios Order)

A nurse in Spain has come down with Ebola, making her the first victim of the current outbreak to not contract the disease in Africa, the BBC reports. Health officials say she began feeling sick last week after treating Manuel Viejo, a Spanish priest who got Ebola in Sierra Leone (Viejo, 69, died on Sept. 25, and was the second Spanish missionary to die of the disease, AFP reports). The nurse was hospitalized today with high fever and is in stable condition. In other Ebola news:

  • Thomas Duncan, the Liberian national being treated for Ebola in Dallas, is in critical but stable condition, the Dallas Morning News reports. He's receiving the experimental Ebola drug brincidofovir; CDC Director Thomas Frieden says the drug Zmapp, which given to US doctors and aid workers, is "all gone," the Independent reports.
  • Ashoka Mukpo, an American photojournalist with Ebola, has flown to Omaha, Nebraska, for treatment, the Guardian reports. He fell ill while reporting on the Liberia outbreak.
  • Frieden says he's confident that Ebola won't spread in the US, but why? Partly it's because Ebola has a low infection rate, NPR reports. Each case of Ebola usually infects only 1.5 to 2.0 others when no one is vaccinated. By contrast, HIV infects 2 to 4, and measles, one of the worst, infects about 18.
(More Ebola stories.)

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