Europe 'must act as one against Ebola threat'

PM Kopacz and France's President Hollande discussed Europe's response to Ebola after the first person to contract the lethal disease outside Africa was diagnosed in Spain.
“We must use the [forthcoming] European Council meeting to harmonize procedures, determine standards of treatment for the management of patients but also the behaviour of medical staff,” Ewa Kopacz said after talks with the French president in Paris on Thursday evening.



After a nurse was found to have contracted the virus in a Madrid hospital earlier this week, the European Union has demanded answers from Spanish authorities about how the disease spread in a specialised disease unit.
The nurse was identified by Spanish media as 44 year-old Teresa Romero, who works at Madrid's La Paz-Carlos III hospital.
Around 7,000 Africans have contracted the virus with over half dying from Ebola.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 3857 people have died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Though non-Africans have died from Ebola after contracting it in African countries and then returned to Europe or the US, the Spanish nurse became the first to contract the deadly virus inside Europe.
“We cannot ignore this virus,” PM Kopacz, a qualified doctor and former health minister told journalists.
Health experts from EU nations will discuss tightening checks at airports next week and a united response will be planned at the EU summit in Brussels on 23 October.
Earlier on Thursday, Ewa Kopacz met with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin for talks on climate change, energy and the Ukraine crisis. (pg)

 

Main photo: Soldiers from the German Army paramedic service take part in a Barrier Nursing Course (learning how to deal with highly contageous patients) in the tropical medicine department at the Army Hospital at the Bernhard Nocht Institute (BNI) in Hamburg, Germany, 07 October 2014. The soldiers, who have volunteered to help combat Ebola and other operations in Africa, are being trained for possible deployment.: photo - EPA/CHRISTIAN CHARISIUS