A Spanish nurse became the first person to test positive on Ebola outside West Africa, authorities said Monday, casting doubts on whether Spain followed adequate measures to prevent the potential spread of the deadly disease.

The unnamed nurse contracted Ebola after caring for an elderly priest expatriated from Sierra Leone, where he became infected while doing missionary work.

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The priest, Manuel Garcia Viejo, was flown back to Madrid on September 21 where he received treatment at the Carlos III hospital. He died four days later, Reuters reported.

The authorities have yet to determine how the transmission happened and whether the medical staff who took care of the priest observed proper protocol, The Washington Post said.

Antonio Alemany, Madrid's director for primary health services, told a news conference that the female nurse only entered the priest's room twice: first to treat him and to collect his belongings after he died. Alemany also noted that the medical staff who oversaw the priest's treatment followed strict medical protocols designed to prevent the spread of the viral infection.

Health authorities said the nurse also helped treat another priest airlifted from Liberia on August 7 after getting infected with Ebola. He died five days later.

The nurse's only symptom was fever, but Spanish health authorities said her two tests came out positive. She is now being treated in isolation, while a list of people she came in contact with is being drawn up to control the potential spread of the disease.

According to NBC News, the 30 healthcare workers she had worked with will be put under 21-day monitoring to check whether they, too, have contracted the viral infection.

Experts tracking the development of the epidemic have projected a high risk for unwittingly importing the deadly viral infection into Europe by the end of October, Reuters reported.

The first case of Ebola in the U.S. is that of a Liberian national who was visiting his son in Texas. U.S. health officials say the man is now in critical condition. 

TagsSpanish nurse, first Ebola case in west, positive test, West Africa, epidemic