Spain is now the second country to evacuate an Ebola patient from West Africa, and the first to bring said patient to Europe.  75-year old missionary Father Miguel Pajares is in stable condition in hospital in Madrid, while a nun who worked with him tested negative for the deadly virus.  She is undergoing another round of tests.

At a military base near Madrid, Pajares arrived on a specially chartered-flight, inside an isolation chamber while healthcare workers were clad head to toe in protective suits.  Even the gurney had an extra layer of plastic on it, beneath the sealed bubble containing Pajares. 

Neither Father Pajares nor Sister Juliana Bohi showed the worst symptoms of Ebola disease, the bleeding and leaking of bodily fluids that causes the worst danger of transmitting the virus to health care workers.  Pajares and Bohi are the third and fourth patients to be evacuated from West Africa, following an American doctor and volunteer who caught the virus while treating patients in Liberia.

Elsewhere in Europe, journalists will be watching the UN World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday in case it decided that history’s worst Ebola Outbreak is a “crisis”, and issues recommendations for international travel restrictions.  In recent years, the WHO has declared an emergency only twice, for swine flu in 2009 and polio in May.

Next week, the WHO will convene a panel of medical ethicists to explore the use of experimental treatment for Ebola patients.  It’s believed that an experimental treatment called ZMapp greatly improved the outlook for the two Americans – Nancy Writebol and Kent Brantly – who were evacuated last weekend and earlier this week.