Our hearts are broken. Clarisa and I know the 3 people in this article very well. Father Miguel, Sr. Chantal and Sr. Paciencia have all contracted EBOLA caring for those who had been infected in Liberia. Clarisa and I made countless visits to St. Jospehs Catholic Hospital in Monrovia and were patients there when we had malaria. The director of the hospital, Brother Patrick, a friend as well has just died from EBOLA and the government has closed St. Josephs. Sr. Chantal and Sr. Paciencia were very close and dear friends and we are lamenting their illness. However these people are heroes and true servants of the Living God as they stood by the dying and cared for them...maybe at the cost of their own lives. Prayers for these beautiful people. thespainreport/10252/spanish-catholic-missionary/Spain To Repatriate 75-Year-Old Priest Miguel Pajares After He Tests Positive For Ebola In Liberia A 75-year-old Spanish priest, Brother Miguel Pajares, has tested positive for Ebola at the San José de Monrovia Hospital in Liberia, along with two other workers. Brother Pajares, belonging to the Madrid-based Juan Ciudad Foundation and the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios, told Spanish news agency EFE by telephone that he felt “abandoned” in Liberia and wished to be flown back to Spain: “I’m frankly in a bad way. I can’t lift my head up”. Adriana Castro, a spokeswoman for the Juan Ciudad Foundation told The Spain Report that Brother Pajares, who is very weak and has a strong fever, has asked to be flown to Spain for treatment and that they were waiting for a reply from Spain’s Foreign Office and Health Ministry. “He has asked to be flown to Spain and they’re looking at the possibility, talking about it, and seem predisposed to attempt it, but they’re looking into if it would be the best option for the patient.” Sources from Spain’s Health Ministry told news agency EFE that the decision had been taken on Tuesday evening to repatriate Brother Pajares. It said the risk of contagion from Ebola in Spain was “very low”. The director of the hospital, Brother Patrick Nshamdze, died of Ebola on August 3, and Brother Pajares had been caring for him. In a statement published on its website, the foundation described the situation in the hospital, which is closed, as “serious” and said two other workers, Sisters Chantal Pascaline Mutwamene, from the Congo, and Paciencia Melgar, from Ecuatorial Guinea, had also tested positive for the Ebola virus. Diplomatic sources at the Spanish Foreign Office told The Spain Report that the decision to start moving Brother Pajares back to Spain depended on the Spanish Health Ministry, which is responsible for activating the relevant crisis protocols. The Spanish Health Ministry had not replied to a request for further information on the status of Brother Pajares’s request to be flown back to Spain at the time of publication. More than 73,000 people have signed an online petition asking the Spanish authorities to fly the priest back to Spain. The Spanish Foreign Office updated its advice for Spaniards today, telling them not to travel to Liberia “under any circumstances” because of the “large increase” in the number of Ebola cases, and advising those already in the country to avoid the most affected areas. British Airways announced this evening that it was suspending direct flights to Sierra Leone and Liberia until August 31. The US Center for Disease Control published an update on the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak—affecting Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria —yesterday, August 4, and counts the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases at 1,009, with 887 suspected case deaths. Almost a third of those fatalities, 255, have occurred in Liberia. According to information published on the Juan Ciudad Foundation webpage, the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios has 1,230 brothers and 45,000 local workers employed in 50 countries around the
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 03:18:47 +0000
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