2 suspected Ebola cases in Spain test negative

MADRID - Two of four people suspected of having Ebola and admitted to hospitals in Spain have tested negative in a first round of tests, officials said Friday.

The government's Ebola monitoring committee said on its official Twitter account that the two were a person who arrived on an Air France jet that was isolated at Madrid's airport Thursday and a person who traveled in the same ambulance used to hospitalize infected Spanish nursing assistant Teresa Romero on Oct. 6. Both had developed fevers. They will be tested a second time within 72 hours.

Two others, a missionary who came down with a fever after returning from Liberia and a Red Cross health worker who recently worked with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, were also to be tested.

Health Ministry spokesman Fernando Simon said Romero's infection was almost under control and there was increasingly less reason to be worried.

Meanwhile, France's government announced Friday it is strengthening its anti-Ebola efforts even though no cases have been detected in the country.

The prime minister appointed a prominent doctor, Jean-Francois Delfraissy, as Ebola "czar" to coordinate France's international and national responses to the crisis.