Number of people monitored for Ebola in Spain rises to 16

The number of people known to have died of Ebola has risen to 4,033 out of 8,399 cases

A woman holds a message titled ‘Be strong Teresa!’ as several people protest in Madrid, Spain, against Ebola infected nurse Teresa Romero’s dog ‘Excalibur’ who was killed following Ms Romero’s Ebola diagnosis. Photograph: Victor Lerena/EPA
A woman holds a message titled ‘Be strong Teresa!’ as several people protest in Madrid, Spain, against Ebola infected nurse Teresa Romero’s dog ‘Excalibur’ who was killed following Ms Romero’s Ebola diagnosis. Photograph: Victor Lerena/EPA

Three more people are under observation in a Madrid hospital, boosting the number currently being monitored for Ebola symptoms to 16.

A nursing assistant infected with the virus remains stable.

The three are a nurse who treated Teresa Romero, a hairdresser who served her and a hospital cleaner were admitted to Madrid's Carlos III hospital.

A government statement today said none of the 16 in quarantine — including Romero’s husband, five doctors and five nurses — have shown any symptoms.

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Ms Romero, 44, the first person known to have contracted the disease outside West Africa in the current outbreak, had cared for two Spanish priests who died of Ebola at the hospital in August and September.

In Barcelona people took to the streets to protest at authorities destroying Romero’s pet dog, Excalibur, as part of precautions to prevent the spread of Ebola.

With recriminations growing over how Ms Romero became infected at the Madrid hospital, Spain's prime minister Mariano Rajoy said it was extremely unlikely that the disease would spread in Spain.

“Our first priority is Teresa Romero – she is the only person that we know has the illness,” he told reporters on the steps of the specially-adapted Carlos III hospital, surrounded by medical staff.

Mr Rajoy said he had set up a committee headed by the deputy prime minister to handle the crisis, five days after news first broke of Ms Romero’s infection.

The number of people known to have died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record had risen to 4,033 out of 8,399 cases in seven countries by Wednesday of this week, the World Health Organisation has said.

The death toll includes 2,316 in Liberia, 930 in Sierra Leone, 778 in Guinea, eight in Nigeria and 1 in the United States. The data include one case each in Spain and Senegal but no deaths. A separate Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 43 people out of 71 cases.

Concern has risen elsewhere in Europe after Macedonia said it was checking for Ebola in a British man who died there yesterday, although authorities said it was unlikely he had the disease. A Prague hospital was testing a 56-year-old Czech man with symptoms of the virus.

The Ebola virus causes fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and sometimes internal bleeding, and is spread through direct contact with body fluids. About half of those infected in West Africa have died.

Spanish labour unions accused the government of trying to deflect the blame on to Ms Romero for the failings of its health system, after the European Union asked Spain to explain how the virus could have been spread on a high-security ward.

The top regional health official in Madrid, Javier Rodriguez, has said Ms Romero took too long to admit she had made a mistake by touching her face with the glove of her protective suit while taking it off.

“She has taken days to recognise that she may have made a mistake when taking off the suit. If she had said it earlier, it would have saved a lot of work,” he said in a radio interview.

El Mundo newspaper published a cartoon on Friday showing Mr Rajoy and other officials of his People’s Party pointing at the nurse under the caption: “Protocol for passing on blame”.

“They will find any way to blame her,” Ms Romero’s brother, José Ramon, told the daily El País. “Basically, my sister did her job ... and she has become infected with Ebola.”

Agencies