News Digest

Spanish nurse who beat Ebola leaves hospital, criticizes dog’s slaying

A Spanish nurse who was the first person to catch Ebola outside of Africa fought back tears as she left hospital on Wednesday after being cured of the deadly virus. “I am here to thank everyone, I am still very weak,” Teresa Romero, 44, told a news conference at Carlos III Hospital in Madrid where she has spent the past month, mostly in isolation. Romero’s eyes occasionally welled up with tears as she read a statement, surrounded by doctors and her husband Javier Limon. Still, Romero criticized Spanish officials for killing her beloved dog, saying the mixed breed named Excalibur was unnecessarily “executed.” Romero was part of a team at the Carlos III hospital who volunteered to treat two elderly Spanish missionaries who caught the disease in Africa and died in Madrid in August and September.

When I felt I was dying I would cling to my memories, to my family and my husband, I was isolated and I did not have any contact with the exterior except with Javier by telephone.

Teresa Romero

She was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 6, becoming the first person to catch the disease outside Africa, where nearly 5,000 people have died in the outbreak. “This disease did not matter to the Western world until there was an infection here,” Romero said. Tempers have frayed over the case, with health workers saying they had not received adequate training and equipment, and labour unions accusing the government of trying to deflect the blame onto the nurse for failings in its handling of the issue. Health workers jeered Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and pelted his car with surgical gloves on Oct. 10 when he visited the hospital where Romero was treated. Spain tightened its Ebola control measures after complaints that included protective suits that were too small for some medical workers.

I don’t know what failed, or if anything failed. I just know that I don’t hold any grudges. If my infection is good for something, to better study the disease and help develop a vaccine, or if my blood can be used to cure other people, I am available.

Teresa Romero