Spanish nurse infected with Ebola ‘touched face with tainted glove’

The Spanish nurse being treated for Ebola says she touched her face with a tainted protective glove after helping treat a man dying from the virus. Teresa Romero, 40, is in quarantine in a Madrid hospital but told doctors she believes she made the mistake after cleaning up after the man. Heath officials said she had twice entered the room of Spanish missionary Manuel Garcia Viejo - once to change his incontinence pad and then to retrieve items after he had died. Mrs Romero is the first person to contract the virus outside Africa.

The mistake was on taking off the suit. I see it as the most critical moment in which it could have happened, but I don’t know for sure.

Teresa Romero

She earlier told El Mundo she had no idea how she was infected and that she had followed all precautions. Some 50 other people - who either had contact with Mrs Romero or treated one of the two missionaries who died at the hospital - are also being monitored. It comes as Britain is sending more than 750 military personnel and the medical ship RFA Argus to West Africa to help in the efforts to contain the outbreak - and as it was announced that Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian to become the first man diagnosed with Ebola in the US, had died.

I haven’t got a fever today, I feel somewhat better.

Teresa Romero

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