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In Spain, panic about Ebola is growing up after five more people were hospitalized there. One nurse has tested positive and several others are being monitored. They were all part of a team that treated two Spanish missionaries who were infected with Ebola in West Africa and who later died in Madrid. Lauren Frayer reports on the reaction in Madrid.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Health workers are protesting outside their hospitals in Madrid, angry that protective suits and safety protocols failed to keep one of their colleagues from getting Ebola. She's a 40-year-old Spanish nurse who helped treat two priests who died of the virus here in Madrid, in August and September. A Spanish journalist managed to reach Teresa Romero by phone inside her isolation ward.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: (Spanish spoken).
TERESA ROMERO: (Spanish spoken).
FRAYER: I'm better, a little better, she says.
Romero is being treated with antibodies from other Ebola patients. Her husband and several coworkers are also in isolation. Her doctor, German Ramirez, says he's questioned her about how she may have contracted the virus.
GERMAN RAMIREZ: (Spanish spoken).
FRAYER: She told me there's a possibility that she might have inadvertently let part of her protective suit touch her face, likely the gloves, he says. Spain has opened an investigation into possible oversights that may have led to this infection - the first outside Africa. Angry medical staff are calling for the health minister's resignation. The European Commission has asked the Spanish government to explain, but Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was defiant today in Parliament.
PRIME MINISTER MARIANO RAJOY: (Spanish spoken).
FRAYER: Let the professionals do their job. Have confidence in them - they're some of the best in the world, he said.
But those professionals missed the first signs of Ebola in nurse Romero when she turned up at a hospital with a fever last week. They initially sent her home with Tylenol before eventually ordering quarantine. The doctor working at that hospital has shown NPR photos he took inside of only chest-high curtains cordoning off what's supposed to be a quarantine area and flimsy plastic ribbons blocking hallways. He and others have suggested Madrid's Ebola safety protocol was not up to World Health Organization standards.
WHO official Peter Piot says new Ebola cases will probably emerge among medical staff because treating Ebola patients...
PETER PIOT: Is a very risky business and the slightest mistake can be fatal.
FRAYER: Anger is also mounting over the case of the infected nurse's dog.
(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)
HUSBAND: (Spanish spoken).
FRAYER: I call in the population to help save my dog, the nurse's husband said in the video on YouTube.
But Spanish health officials under fire for possible oversight aren't tolerating any more risk. The dog, a sandy-colored mixed breed named Excalibur, has been put down. Dozens of animal lovers screamed murderers at a disinfection team entering the nurse's apartment. Her dog had become the focus of many Spaniards' fears and sense of injustice over Ebola. But as one Spanish lawmaker tweeted this afternoon, one dog in Madrid has generated more mobilization than thousands of deaths from Ebola in Africa - something to reflect on, he wrote.
For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer in Madrid. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.