No case in 40 days: Spain officially free of Ebola

GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Tuesday declared Spain free of Ebola after going a month and a half with no new cases since an infected nurse successfully beat the disease. Forty-two days - or two incubation periods - have passed since Spanish nurse Teresa Romero tested negative for the virus, it said. “There have been no further cases since the healthcare worker was confirmed to be negative for Ebola virus, so today the outbreak is over in Spain,” WHO said in a statement. “On 21 October the healthcare worker tested negative for the second time and was consequently considered free of Ebola infection,” it said. Romero was the first person to catch the disease outside Africa in the current outbreak which has killed nearly 6,000 people, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Ebola, one of the deadliest viruses known to man, is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2014.