Madrid, Oct 27 (IANS/EFE): Ten people were discharged Monday from the Carlos III Hospital in Madrid where they were in quarantine, after they showed no signs of the Ebola virus at the end of the 21-day incubation period.

Only two people remain at the hospital, a low-risk patient who continues under observation but has no symptoms of the disease, and nursing assistant Teresa Romero, 44, the first person who contracted the virus outside Africa.

Romero was declared free from the virus last week, but remains at the hospital to recover from its side effects.

The nursing assistant was admitted to the hospital Oct 6 after suffering a fever and was diagnosed with Ebola.

She caught the virus while treating two Spanish missionaries repatriated from Sierra Leone and Liberia, who died from the disease in August and September.

All the people she had been in contact with were put under observation in their homes or were taken to the Carlos III Hospital, including her husband, Javier Limon, who was discharged Monday.

The haemorrhaegic fever is considered most contagious once the patient has fever, and its incubation period is 21 days.

The Ebola outbreak in Western Africa has killed more than 4,500 people since last March, most of them in Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia.