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Two of six new Ebola suspects in Spain test negative

An ambulance transporting a Spanish missionary, recently returned from Liberia, arrives at the specialist disease unit in Madrid's Carlos III hospital on October 17, 2014/AFP

An ambulance transporting a Spanish missionary, recently returned from Liberia, arrives at the specialist disease unit in Madrid’s Carlos III hospital on October 17, 2014/AFP

MADRID, Oct 17 – Two of six new Ebola suspects admitted to hospital for monitoring in Spain have tested negative for the deadly virus, the government said Friday.

The first to test negative was a passenger who arrived in Madrid on Thursday from Nigeria via Paris on an Air France flight who had started shaking during the trip, the government’s Ebola monitoring committee said on its official Twitter feed.

The other was a man who was transported in the same ambulance used to hospitalise a nurse, Teresa Romero, who caught Ebola while caring for two infected missionary who were repatriated from west Africa, and who died from the virus shortly after arriving in Spain.

Romero was herself diagnosed with Ebola on October 6, the first person known to have become infected with he virus outside of Africa.

She remains in a stable condition at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital, which Spain has designated to handle Ebola cases.

Four others were also to be tested, including a missionary who came down with a fever after returning from Liberia.

The unnamed missionary is a member of the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios, a Roman Catholic group that runs a charity working with Ebola victims in west Africa. The two infected missionaries who Romero treated belonged to the same group.

“He is considered a low risk case since he did not have contact with people with Ebola since the San Jose de Monrovia hospital where he lived has been closed since August 1,” the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios said in a statement.

Three other people were being monitored on Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands, including a Red Cross worker who had travelled from another affected country, Sierra Leone.

Health officials in Tenerife said they had hospitalised the man in isolation when he complained of a fever on Thursday after arriving on the island on October 12 from Sierra Leone via Brussels and Madrid.

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The man underwent tests which have been sent to Madrid for analysis. He had not shown symptoms before Thursday.

They also put two people who live with the man into isolation in hospital as a precaution, although they are not displaying any Ebola like symptoms.

Nearly 4,500 people have died so far this year from Ebola, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Health officials warn many more will die if the outbreak continues at its current pace.

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