Ebola scare in Spanish coastal resort

ALICANTE, Spain – An Ebola scare has taken place in a Spanish coastal resort.

Health chiefs in Alicante, Spain, have activated their alert protocols after a Nigerian man showed ‘several symptoms’ of the disease.

He was admitted to hospital with fever and vomiting, prompting concern among doctors, Sky News reported.

It comes after Spanish priest Father Miguel Pajares died from the deadly disease which he caught while working in Liberia.

Yesterday, a patient was quarantined during an Ebola scare at a British hospital.

The man, who had traveled from Lebanon, walked into the Accident and Emergency department at Weston General Hospital in Somerset at around 9am.

Nurses became concerned that the symptoms he was displaying were related to the disease and he was isolated on the ward.

Tests carried out on the patient later confirmed he was not infected with Ebola.

Patients were kept waiting for assessments at the hospital in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, while the hour-long incident was resolved.

A hospital spokeswoman said: “A patient came in from abroad and because of some of the symptoms they were displaying, the accident and emergency department were naturally very cautious.

“They followed all the correct procedures and the proper triaging. The patient was found not to have Ebola.

“After around an hour it was back to business as normal once the department had established there was no cause for concern.”

Isolating Ebola patients is critical to slowing the spread of the disease, as sick people can transmit it through their bodily fluids such as blood, sweat or urine.

There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for the disease, which has killed at least half of its victims this year.

The latest negative test comes after a Sierra Leone athlete competing at the Commonwealth Games was tested and found to be clear of Ebola in Glasgow last month.

So far more than 1,000 people have died and almost 2,000 suspected, probable or confirmed cases have been recorded in West Africa since the outbreak was first detected.