HMM: Spanish nurse’s assistant hasn’t ‘slightest idea’ how she got Ebola.
The woman, named by Spanish media outlets as Teresa Romero Ramos, told the paper she took the right precautions in helping to care for a Spanish missionary who was infected with Ebola in West Africa and who died after being brought to the hospital where she worked.
Was she worried she might have contracted the disease after helping with his care?
“Well, no, not at all,” she told El Mundo. . . .
Five people were under observation in a hospital Wednesday — the woman’s husband, judged to be at high risk of infection; a nurse from the same hospital admitted Wednesday morning after showing symptoms; another nurse’s assistant who worked on the same team as the infected woman and was admitted late Tuesday with a fever; a nurse who has tested negative for the virus and is expected to be discharged Wednesday; and an engineer who returned from Nigeria, who also has tested negative and is set to be discharged.
Stay tuned.
Related: “This should be a lesson for everybody that you can’t overreact. You can’t overprotect.”
UPDATE: We may have an answer:
Dr. German Ramirez of the Carlos III hospital in Madrid said Romero remembers she once touched her face with protection gloves after leaving an Ebola victim’s quarantine room.
Health officials say Romero twice entered the room of Spanish missionary Manuel Garcia Viejo, who died of Ebola on Sept. 25 — once to change his diaper and again after he died to retrieve unspecified items. Ramirez said Romero believes she touched her face with the glove after her first entry.
“It appears we have found the origin” of Romero’s infection, Ramirez said, but he cautioned the investigation was not complete.
Romero was said to be in stable condition Wednesday. Health authorities in Madrid have faced accusations of not following protocol and poorly preparing health care workers for dealing with Ebola.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Romero said she thought “the mistake was on taking off the suit. I see it as the most critical moment in which it could have happened, but I don’t know for sure.”
“I haven’t got a fever today, I feel somewhat better,” she told the newspaper.
In an earlier interview published by Spain’s El Mundo newspaper, she said she had followed safety protocols as part of the team treating two priests infected with Ebola.
Her husband Javier Limon told the same newspaper that his wife went on vacation after Garcia Viejo died. She started feeling sick with a low fever Sept. 30 but still took a career advancement exam with other candidates. Health authorities say she did not leave the Madrid area during her vacation.
That’s not entirely comforting.