Spanish missionary doctor with Ebola repatriated
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 @ 5:57 PM
A PRIEST carrying out aid work in West Africa has contracted the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic virus from patients he was treating – but thanks to an online petition, will be repatriated to Spain under controlled conditions for medical attention.
Brother Miguel Pajares, 75, has been in isolation in a hospital in Liberia along with Sisters Chantal, Paciencia, Catherine and Juliana, the latter of whom is Spanish.
He treated the hospital's director, Patricdk Nshamdze, when the medic caught the Ebola virus, but Nshamdze passed away on Sunday.
Relatives and friends of the missionaries in Liberia fear that with limited medical resources in the country, the same could happen.
As well as Pajares, Chantal and Paciencia have been confirmed as suffering from the condition, but as yet Catherine and Juliana are thought to have escaped.
A petition on campaign site www.change.org was launched on Sunday and already it has borne fruit for Pajares, who is due to land in the military airport at Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) this afternoon.
He is in an isolated compartment on the plane and anyone in contact with him is required to follow extremely strict procedures to ensure they do not have any physical contact with him since even skin-to-skin can result in an exchange of bodily fluids, through sweat, and pass on the disease.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com