The Spanish Nurse Who Survived Ebola Leaves Hospital Disease-Free

The Spanish nurse’s aide believed to be the first person to have contracted Ebola outside Africa was on Wednesday released from a Madrid hospital.

Teresa Romero, 44, thanked God and her caregivers for “giving her back life,” the New York Times reports.

Health officials said it was impossible to discern which of several factors — including the use of an experimental Ebola drug and blood plasma from another survivor — had beaten the often fatal disease

Romero had tested positive for the illness almost a month ago, after treating a missionary who had come down with the disease in West Africa and later died in Madrid.

Her case had stoked fears that Ebola could threaten countries with advanced health care systems — worries that reached new heights when two health care workers in Dallas also contracted the illness — and played into a furious blame game.

“I don’t know what went wrong, I don’t even know if anything went wrong,” Romero said. “I only know that … if my infection can be of some use, so that the disease can be studied better or to help find a vaccine or to cure other people, here I am.”

[NYT]