Last year, an Italian doctor with the same aid group, Emergency, was successfully treated in the Spallanzani hospital in Rome and was released after a month. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the doctor said he had received infusions of the blood of Spanish and German health workers, and he speculated that his own blood might be used to treat the nurse.

Local health officials will monitor the nurses and doctors who have examined the patient as well as his closest contacts. The health minister confirmed that workers at the Sassari hospital were wearing personal protective equipment while treating that patient, and that it was not necessary to track down all the passengers on the nurse’s flights, because his symptoms showed three days after his last flight.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 11,000 people have died from Ebola since the outbreak of the disease in December 2013.