Second Spanish Ebola patient arrives in Madrid

A SPANISH doctor and priest infected with the Ebola virus arrived in Madrid this morning.

Manuel García Viejo, aged 69, touched down in the early hours on a flight from Sierra Leone, and has been quarantined in Madrid’s Carlos III hospital. He is reported to be in a serious condition. 

García Viejo has spent the last 12 years as Chief Medical Consultant at the religious order of San Juan de Dios in Lunsar, Sierra Leone, and contracted the disease after treating patients at the Order’s medical centre.

A specially-equipped military aeroplane took off from Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown Sunday afternoon, and arrived at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base at 3.15am Monday morning, entering the hospital half an hour later.

All of the crew, health workers and the flight deck were protected by special quarantine suits and impermeable sheeting which is designed to prevent the spread of infection.

This is the second time in less than two months that the Spanish government has brought citizens infected with Ebola home. On August 7, the priest Miguel Pajares arrived in the same hospital in which García Viejo is currently residing, although he unfortunately died five days later.

Following the same protocol as before, García Viejo has been placed in a pressurised isolation ward on the sixth floor of the hospital.