Spanish nurse’s Ebola infection blamed on substandard equipment

Staff at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital say protective suits do not meet WHO standards as second nurse undergoes tests for virus

Health professionals in Madrid have blamed substandard equipment and a failure to follow protocol for the first case of Ebola to be contracted outside west Africa.

Health authorities announced on Monday that a Spanish nurse at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital who treated a patient repatriated from Sierra Leone had twice tested positive for Ebola.

Her husband had also been admitted to hospital and was in isolation, and a second nurse from the same team that treated both repatriated Ebola victims was also being tested. In this case, the nurse contacted the authorities on Monday complaining of a fever. She was in isolation in the Carlos III Hospital while authorities waited for the test results, a spokesperson for the Madrid regional government said.

Staff at the hospital told El País that the protective suits they were given did not meet World Health Organisation standards, which specify that suits must be impermeable and include breathing apparatus. Staff also pointed to latex gloves secured with adhesive tape as an example of how the suits were not impermeable and noted that they did not have their own breathing equipment.

The nurse was part of a team attending to missionary Manuel García Viejo, 69, who died four days after being brought to Madrid’s Carlos III hospital on 20 September. The same team, including the nurse, also treated missionary Miguel Pajares, 75, who was repatriated from Liberia in August and died five days later.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/07/ebola-crisis-substandard-equipment-nurse-positive-spain

WTH! Waste from the rooms of both patients was carried out in the same elevator used by all of the personnel