Spanish nurse’s Ebola infection blamed on substandard equipment

When I saw that an Ebola patient was sent to Spain, I commented online "so it begins". I said at the outset that it was a huge mistake to import people with what is essentially an incurable disease into countries in which it is not native. That once it left it's "home" it would spread (possibly mutate).

Some people objected to that statement because it "seemed racist". Well "seemed racist" got 1400 girls raped in England. "Seemed racist" is preventing a serious confrontation with the high levels of homicide in black communities. How many more avoidable things have to happen while we seek to not "seem racist"?

Lets be clear: No one from an Ebola zone should be allowed to leave that area until it is proven that they are not infected. None should be allowed to enter any other country until that epidemic is done. If there are institutions and countries with advanced medical care, then float a ship and take care of those persons off-shore.

There is way too much hubris about how "advanced" the medical facilities are in the US. Understand that there are always human error. There are always the liars. There are always those who honestly had no clue. The reason for the strict rules and procedures is to minimize the human fallibility element. But too many people in these advanced societies think that rules don't apply to them. They see rules as inherently unfair and since "unfair" is definitively bad to them, they are against them. How many people get to be dead before we put a stop to these imbeciles who are incapable of saying "no" to people they sympathize with?

Staff at the hospital told El País that the protective suits they were given did not meet World Health Organisation (WHO) standards, which specify that suits must be impermeable and include breathing apparatus. Staff also pointed to latex gloves secured with adhesive tape as an example of how the suits were not impermeable and noted that they did not have their own breathing equipment.

The nurse was part of a team attending to missionary Manuel García Viejo, 69, who died four days after being brought to Carlos III hospital on 20 September. The same team, including the nurse, also treated missionary Miguel Pajares, 75, who was repatriated from Liberia in August and died five days later.

Staff at the hospital said waste from the rooms of both patients was carried out in the same elevator used by all personnel and, in the case of the second patient, the hospital was not evacuated.[my underlines]

I truly hope this is limited and short in duration, but one day our unwillingness to do what has to be done will cause a pandemic that could have been prevented.