A Madrid airport has activated emergency measures after a passenger arriving on an Air France flight was suspected of having Ebola. The passenger on Air France 1300 from Lagos, Nigeria, had started shivering with a fever during the flight which landed at Barajas International Airport in the Spanish capital.
Air France said the other passengers disembarked from the plane, which was flying via Paris. The plane will now be disinfected and the return flight has been cancelled.
Spain's government has stepped up its response to suspected Ebola cases in the wake of a health scare when a nurse in Madrid became the first person outside Africa to become infected with the deadly disease in the current outbreak. Teresa Romero, was diagnosed with the virus last week and is still seriously ill but stable. She had cared for two infected Catholic priests repatriated from West Africa and who later died.
Spanish authorities said that a person who had been in contact with Ms Romero and was being monitored remotely for signs of the disease would be hospitalized, after developing a fever. The person was one of 68 considered to have a low risk of catching Ebola, and are required to check their temperature regularly from home. Another 15 people, including Romero's husband, are still under observation for signs of Ebola in Madrid's Carlos III hospital where she is also being treated, but have shown no symptoms.
The World Health Organization estimates the death toll from the worst outbreak of Ebola on record to have exceeded 4,400. It has called the outbreak the 'most severe acute health emergency in modern times'. West Africa is the worst affected area. In Liberia more than 2,300 people have died, while in Sierra Leone and Guinea stands at nearly 1,000 each. The deadly virus has also reached Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and the United States but outbreaks have been contained so far.
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