Ebola: Spain sends air force plane to evacuate Catholic priest infected in Liberia

Spain’s government has concluded plans to send an air force plane to Liberia to fly an elderly Spanish missionary infected with Ebola back home for treatment.

The priest, Miguel Pajares, tested positive for Ebola at the Saint Joseph Hospital in Monrovia were he has worked for the past seven years.

A Spanish Defence spokesman disclosed that Spain has equipped a military Airbus A310 for a medical evacuation and is to send the aircraft to pick up the missionary priest.

 “As soon as it is ready it will leave,” he told AFP.

He said the Airbus A310, based at Madrid’s Torrejon military air base, was equipped overnight and a military medical team trained for the operation.

Spain’s health ministry said no decision had been taken on where the priest would be treated.

Speaking via telephone to Spanish newspaper, ABC, the 75 year old priest said: “This news lifts my spirits, it’s great, I am very happy, it is worth fighting”

The priest has been in quarantine at the Saint Joseph Hospital in Monrovia, along with five other missionaries, since the death on Saturday of the hospital’s director from Ebola.
Pajares has worked in Liberia for over five decades.

This would be another “flight back home” after two Americans who worked for Christian aid agencies in Liberia and were infected with Ebola while taking care of patients in Monrovia were flown back to the US on a Gulfstream private jet which had been fitted with a collapsible, mobile isolation unit designed to transfer employees from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exposed to contagious diseases.