Spanish Ebola priest flown home
August 7, 2014
A Spanish military Airbus carrying Father Miguel Pajares landed at Madrid's Torrejon air base shortly at 8:15 a.m. local time (0615 GMT) on Thursday. The A310 had been equipped with plastic isolation tents.
The 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest was one of three people who had tested positive for Ebola at the San Jose hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia earlier this week. Juliana Bohi, a nun from Equatorial Guinea, who holds Spanish citizenship, was also brought back to Madrid, although she hasn't tested positive for the virus. Both had been helping to treat Ebola patients at the hospital.
Earlier this week the US flew out two infected Americans from Liberia.
State of emergency declared
Meanwhile, the president of Liberia has declared a state of emergency due to the outbreak.
"The scope and scale of the epidemic, the virulence and deadliness of the virus now exceed the capacity and statutory responsibility of any one government agency or ministry," President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said in a speech late on Wednesday.
She said the state of emergency would last for a minimum of 90 days and the plans would be discussed in parliament on Thursday.
Around 300 Liberians have been infected by the virus, which has been raging in west Africa's forests since the start of the year. More than half of those who have caught it have died.
"The threat continues to grow," the president said. "Ignorance, poverty, as well as entrenched religious and cultural practices continue to exacerbate the spread of the disease."
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that 932 people had been killed in what is the deadliest outbreak of Ebola on record. The outbreak has affected Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. It put the total number of people infected at 1,711.
The virus causes severe fever and sometimes unstoppable bleeding. It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids and has a fatality rate of 90 percent.
pfd/hc (AP, dpa, AFP)