Two suspected Ebola patients tested negative for the virus

FOUR people were admitted to hospitals in Madrid and Tenerife on Thursday October 16 on suspicion they could have become infected with Ebola. Two of them, however, tested negative for the virus.

Two of the suspected Ebola patients were isolated at Hospital Carlos III on Thursday afternoon while the third patient arrived after midnight on Friday October 17.

The patients hospitalised in Madrid include a man who reportedly rode in the same ambulance that took nursing assistant Teresa Romero to a hospital in Alcorcon, in the south-west of the Madrid metropolitan area, before she was transferred to Hospital Carlos IIII, a Spanish missionary who is said to have arrived in Spain from Liberia on Saturday October 11, and a Nigerian national who complained about a fever and trembling while on an Air France flight from Paris.

According to Government sources, two of the suspected Ebola patients underwent a first series of tests which came out negative. Nevertheless, they are to remain in the hospital for yet another round of tests scheduled to be conducted after 72 hours.

The Nigerian national tested positive for malaria, said Jose Manuel Echevarria, Head of Virology of the National Microbiology Centre of the Health Institute Carlos III.

The results of the tests performed on the Spanish missionary – being kept in isolation at Hospital Carlos III – and a fourth suspected Ebola patient – a Red Cross nurse hospitalised in Tenerife, who worked at a hospital that treats Ebola cases in Sierra Leone – have not come back yet.

The hospitalised missionary and Miguel Pajares and Manuel Garcia Viejo – the two missionaries repatriated for Ebola – belong to the same religious order known as Order de San Juan de Dios.

“He is a low risk patient since he has had no contact with people suffering from Ebola,” said a statement.