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A nurse in Spain has become the first known person to contract the deadly Ebola virus outside of West Africa, Spain’s health minister said Monday.

The nurse, who contracted the virus after treating a missionary with the disease at a Madrid hospital, tested positive for Ebola this week.

The female nurse was part of the medical team that cared for a 69-year-old Spanish priest who died Sept. 25 in a Madrid hospital designated for treating Ebola patients after he was flown home from Sierra Leone, where he served as the medical director of a hospital there treating infected Ebola patients, Health Minister Ana Mato said.

The nurse is believed to have contracted the virus from that priest, though she was also a member of the team that treated another Spanish priest who died earlier from Ebola.

The nurse did go on vacation the day after the priest died, but checked into a hospital on Sunday with a fever. The nurse currently shows no other signs of the virus, but two tests confirmed she was infected. Authorities are now drawing up a list of people the nurse came in contact with so they can be monitored.

As of Tuesday, she is the only person quarantined in Spain. Her husband and other health workers who cared for her are being monitored.

Meanwhile, President Obama said Monday that the U.S. government would implement new passenger screenings in the nation and in Africa to detect the Ebola virus.

Obama met Monday afternoon with his top health, homeland security, and national security advisers to receive an update on Thomas Eric Duncan’s case, as well as the nation’s overall preparedness for an outbreak and U.S. and international efforts to contain the epidemic in West Africa.

The Centers for Disease Control, Obama said, “is familiar with dealing with infectious diseases and viruses like this. We know what has to be done, and we’ve got the medical infrastructure to do it… All of these things make me confident that here in the United States, at least, the chances of an outbreak — of an epidemic here are extraordinarily low.”

He did not, against the wishes of many, impose a travel ban on those traveling from the three West African nations most affected in the largest Ebola outbreak in history.

Obama defended the government’s handling of the disease, but told reporters, “We’re also going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screening, both at the source and here in the United States.”

[…]

Despite some politicians call for a travel ban from West African, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that proposal “is not something that we’re currently considering.”

Since the international community is relying on commercial aircraft and other transport firms “to move supplies and personnel into the region to try to meet the needs of the individuals who are affected by Ebola and to stop this outbreak at the source,” Earnest added, a travel ban could interfere with that system.

“That is what will be critical to our broader success here,” he said. “So we don’t want to obstruct, you know, one of the core components of our strategy here.”

Obama, however, did not expound on what those screenings would look like. Passengers at airports in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone are already screened for symptoms.

“But this is an extraordinarily virulent disease when you don’t follow the protocols,” the president cautioned. “So the key here is just to make sure that each step along the way, whether it’s a hospital admissions desk, whether it is the doctors, the nurses, public health officials, that everybody has the right information.”

We’ll keep you updated with the latest in the Ebola outbreak.

SOURCE: Washington Post, Huffington Post | VIDEO SOURCE: News Inc.

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