While Spanish officials tried to quell public panic, insisting that 'all necessary measures were in place to ensure public health', concerns remained about their failure to identify exactly how Ms Romero had become infected.
Like other staff at specialist isolation unit of Madrid's Carlos III hospital, she had been drilled in how to use protective clothing when treating patients, and had apparently only visited Mr Garcia's room twice, once to change his medical nappy and once to clear the room after his death on September 25.
'We are complying with the established procedure but we are revising all protocols, including those inside the hospital and those outside,' said Rafael Perez-Santamarina, a senior health official, admitting that the source of the infection was still unknown. 'When we finish the investigation, we will be able to say.'
Javier Limon, the husband of the infected nurse, insisted that his wife had stringently 'followed regulations' while caring for the missionary priests repatriated with the illness.
'She did everything she was told to, and at no time was she concerned that she could have been infected,' he told Spain's El Mundo newspaper in a telephone interview from the hospital isolation ward where he has been quarantined.
Staff at the hospital, meanwhile, staged a public protest, complaining that emergency measures and training on how to look after Mr Garcia and another Ebola-infected priest had not been adequate. They said they had been issued with substandard overalls which were not entirely impermeable, and that they should also have been given breathing apparatus, although medical experts say the latter is not considered essential as Ebola is not airborne.
Questions have also been raised as to why it took so long to isolate the nurse after she began to feel unwell on September 30.
She reportedly contacted health workers to tell them she was suffering from a low fever and fatigue, explaining that she had assisted in the care of the missionaries.
But it was not until she presented herself at her local hospital with a high fever early on Monday that she was finally admitted and tested positive to the deadly haemorrhagic virus.
Spanish officials also took the extra precaution of taking away her pet dog to be put down, amid concerns that the dog could have acted as a carrier of the virus.
Ms Romero is the first person to have contracted Ebola outside of west Africa, where the virus has now claimed nearly 3,500 lives.
The outbreak, which began in Guinea in December, has spread mainly to neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, but isolated cases have also been reported in Nigeria, Senegal and last week also in the US, where a man tested positive after flying to Texas from Liberia.
Thomas Eric Duncan has been in critical condition at a Dallas hospital since Saturday, and has been put on a kidney dialysis machine.
Spain's opposition parties called for the resignation of Ana Mato, the health minister of Spain's conservative government over her handling of the crisis. A European public health safety committee will also meet on Wednesday to review the situation, amid fears that the Madrid outbreak could spread to other countries.
Meanwhile, Zsuzsanna Jakab, the director of the World Health Organisation, predicted that further outbreaks would almost Ebola virus would almost inevitably take place in Europe, given the extensive air links between the European capitals and west Africa.
'Such imported cases and similar events as have happened in Spain will happen also in the future, most likely,' Ms Jakab said. 'It is quite unavoidable ... that such incidents will happen in the future because of the extensive travel both from Europe to the affected countries and the other way around,' she said.
Passengers travelling from Ebola-infected nations in west Africa currently undergo temperature checks before boarding flights, with anyone registering a thermometer reading of 38C banned from boarding. But given that the virus has an incubation period of up to three weeks, it is impossible to screen with complete effectiveness.
While some airlines have suspended direct flights to infected countries, such as British Airways, United Nations health chiefs have lobbied for others to remain in operation, arguing that a complete ban on international air travel would hamper the international aid effort.
Despite the Spanish case, Ms Jakab said a widespread outbreak in Europe was unlikely because of the high standard of health services and public sanitation. 'The most important thing in our view is that Europe is still at low risk, and the Western part of the European region particularly is the best-prepared in the world to respond to viral haemorrhagic fevers,' she said.
She added that she saw no reason yet for screening at Europe's borders of travellers coming from the affected countries in West Africa, despite plans for such measures in the US.
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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