MOSCOW, October 10 (RIA Novosti) - Teresa Romero Ramos, a nurse at a hospital in Madrid who tested positive for the Ebola virus, is in a "very critical" condition, an official from Madrid's regional government said Friday, El Mundo reported.
Earlier on Thursday, President of the Community of Madrid Ignacio Gonzalez explained that Ramos was "in grave danger."
According to the newspaper, the patient's brother, Jose Ramon Romero Ramos, said that a doctor had told him there was no big hope and the case was a very "complicated thing."
The 18 patients who were on the fourth floor of the Carlos III hospital where the patient is being treated have been discharged or transferred to other medical facilities. The floor is now designated exclusively for health workers who are treating possible Ebola cases.
About 10 professionals are working now on the sixth floor, where the infected patient and two case studies are being treated.
The fifth floor of the hospital was evacuated Thursday. It is now holding the at-risk contacts of the infected nurse: her husband, the primary care physician who attended to him and two other medical employees. They are all under observation but are asymptomatic.
On October 6, Ramos tested positive for the Ebola virus after taking part in the treatment of Spanish priest Manuel Garcia Viejo, who became infected with virus while assisting patients in Sierra Leone and died in a Madrid hospital on September 25. This was the current Ebola outbreak's first case in Europe.
The Ebola epidemic currently taking place in West Africa broke out in southern Guinea in February, and later spread across Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal.
The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of those infected. Though there is no officially approved medication for the disease, several countries, including Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan are working on developing Ebola vaccines.
