MADRID (AFP/REUTERS) - A Spanish assistant nurse who treated two Ebola victims at a Madrid hospital has contracted the virus herself in the first case of contagion outside of Africa, health officials said Monday.

"She is a health professional who took care of the infected with the disease who were repatriated and cared for at Carlos III" hospital, the director of Spain's public health department, Mercedes Vinuesa, told a news conference.

Health Minister Ana Mato said the nurse had treated a priest repatriated to Madrid with Ebola last month, and who died of the disease, noting that emergency protocol had been put in place and authorities were working to establish the source of the contagion.

Hospital officials said people who had come into contact with the nurse were being monitored, though they had no knowledge of any further cases at present.

The nurse began to feel sick on Sept. 30, they said.