Nurse at Spain Hospital Contracts Ebola

In what is believed to be the first infection outside of Africa, an assistant nurse at a Madrid hospital where two Ebola patients died has contracted the virus herself.

According to AFP, a spokesman for the health department of the regional government of Madrid told them:

"Two tests were done and the two were positive,"

The woman works at Madrid's La Paz-Carlos III hospital where two missionaries who were
repatriated from Africa with Ebola died from the disease, a spokeswoman for the hospital said.

"We do not know yet if she treated any of the two missionaries," the spokeswoman told AFP.

Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, 75, was infected with Ebola in Liberia and died at the hospital on August 12. Another Spanish missionary, Manuel Garcia viejo, 69, was repatriated from Sierra Leone and died at the hospital on September 25. The Ebola epidemic that has been raging in west Africa has so far claimed almost 3,500 lives, with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone worst hit.