Priest With Ebola Dies In Spanish Hospital As Eight Chinese Workers Quarantined

Sadly, the Spanish missionary priest who became infected with Ebola treating patients in Liberia has died in hospital in Madrid. As AP reports, Father Miguel Pajares died despite receiving the experimental drug ZMapp, and is one of 3 patients to receive it (the American doctors in Atlanta being the other 2). This morning the WHO confirmed the use of “experimental, unproven” Ebola drugs such as ZMapp was ethical in this situation, as the death toll tops 1000 in what WHO called the “most severe and most complex outbreak of Ebola virus disease in history.” Perhaps most concerning of all this morning is news that China is quarantining 8 of its West African nurses (as the death toll among health workers surges).

As AP reports,

A Spanish missionary priest being treated for Ebola died Tuesday in a Madrid hospital, authorities said.

Spain’s Health Ministry said a day earlier that it had obtained a course of the U.S.-made experimental Ebola drug ZMapp to treat Father Miguel Pajares, 75.

Pajares died Tuesday at Carlos III Hospital, the hospital and his order said. The hospital would not confirm that he had been treated with the drug, but his order said earlier that he would be.

He is one of only three Ebola patients thought to have received the experimental drug. The others are two Americans evacuated to Atlanta.

Pajares, who was treating people with Ebola at the San Jose de Monrovia Hospital in Liberia when he became infected, was evacuated to Spain on Thursday. He worked for the San Juan de Dios hospital order, a Spain-based Catholic humanitarian group that runs hospitals around the world.

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The World Health Organization confirms use of experimental and unproven Ebola drugs is ethical:

*WHO PANEL SAYS ETHICAL TO USE UNPROVEN EBOLA DRUGS
*WHO: LOOKING AT 3 TYPES OF PRODUCTS TO TREAT EBOLA
*WHO: HOPE THERE ARE MORE ZMAPP DOSES BY END OF YEAR
*WHO: WE DON’T MAKE ANY CHOICES ON WHO GETS EBOLA DRUGS
*WHO: IT’S A MARKET FAILURE THAT NO DRUG APPROVED FOR EBOLA
*WHO: APPEARS THAT ZMAPP HAD `DRAMATIC’ EFFECT ON 2 AMERICANS (but not on the Spanish priest)
*WHO: DIFFICULT TO SAY WHETHER ZMAPP WORKS
*WHO: IMPORTANT NOT TO GIVE FALSE HOPE ABOUT EBOLA DRUGS

An ethics panel ruled that the drugs, which have not yet passed clinical trials but have shown early promise in combating the virus, could provide a “potent asset” in the battle to contain the epidemic, which it called the “most severe and most complex outbreak of Ebola virus disease in history.”

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Perhaps even more concerning is China’s quarantining its West African nurses (as the death toll among health workers surges):

Eight Chinese medical workers who treated patients with Ebola have been placed in quarantine in Sierra Leone, Beijing’s ambassador said Monday, but would not be drawn on whether they were displaying symptoms of the disease.

In addition, 24 nurses have been quarantined, health officials said, while a senior physician had contracted Ebola but was responding well to treatment.

The nation’s sole virologist, who was at the forefront of its battle against the epidemic, died from Ebola last month.

As countries around the world were on alert, Japan said it was evacuating two dozen staff from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

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And here is Bloomberg’s roundup of the latest Ebola headlines: