An elderly Spanish priest became the first European to die from a fast-spreading Ebola outbreak on Tuesday, succumbing to the virus in a Madrid hospital five days after being evacuated from Liberia.

An elderly Spanish priest became the first European to die from a fast-spreading Ebola outbreak on Tuesday, succumbing to the virus in a Madrid hospital five days after being evacuated from Liberia.

The 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest, Miguel Pajares, had been treated in Spain with an experimental US serum, ZMapp, after being flown to Madrid on August 7.

He was the first patient to be evacuated to Europe from the African outbreak, which has claimed 1,013 lives since early this year, according to the World Health Organization.

The Spanish priest contracted Ebola at the Saint Joseph Hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia where he worked with infected patients.

He died at 9:28 am (0728 GMT), a spokeswoman for Madrid's La Paz-Carlos III hospital said, confirming that he had been treated with ZMapp.

The priest's remains will be incinerated to avoid any risk to health professionals, the hospital said in a statement.

A few days before the Spaniard's evacuation, two US missionary workers with Ebola were repatriated from Monrovia. They are being treated with ZMapp at an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

The unproven medicine arrived at Madrid's La Paz-Carlos III hospital on Saturday after Spain's drug safety agency exceptionally cleared its import to treat the missionary.