The World Health Organization’s European director Zsuzsanna Jakab has said that it is “quite unavoidable that the Ebola virus will spread across Europe.” The warning comes as four people were in a Spanish hospital after a nurse became the first person known to have contracted the disease outside of Africa. The nurse apparently became infected while working with two missionary priests with the disease. Both priests contracted Ebola while in West Africa and have died.
Jakab thinks that Europe is prepared to control the disease. “Such imported cases and similar events as have happened in Spain will happen also in the future, most likely,” said Ms. Jakab. “It is quite unavoidable … that such incidents will happen in the future because of the extensive travel both from Europe to the affected countries and the other way around,” she said.
Twenty-two people who came in contact with the infected nurse are being monitored for signs of the disease. The nurse, who is being treated in Carlos III Hospital in Madrid, is in stable condition. Up to 30 colleagues also treated the priests. Officials are trying to find out how the infection spread to the nurse.
“John also was a witness of the terrible scenes that will take place as signs of Christ’s coming. He saw armies mustering for battle, and men’s hearts failing them for fear. He saw the earth moved out of its place, the mountains carried into the midst of the sea, the waves thereof roaring and troubled, and the mountains shaking with the swelling thereof. He saw the vials of God’s wrath opened, and pestilence, famine, and death come upon the inhabitants of the earth.” Review and Herald, January 11, 1887