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‘Ebola-Like Symptoms’ in Canada May Be a False Alarm Tests Rule Out Ebola in Canadian Patient
(about 4 hours later)
Reports of a patient in Canada who was hospitalized with “Ebola-like symptoms” after returning from West Africa may be premature, World Health Organization officials said Tuesday. A patient in a Canadian hospital who was feared to have been infected by the Ebola virus while in West Africa does not have the virus, health officials said Tuesday.
Health officials in Saskatchewan said a critically ill patient in Saskatoon had recently returned from Liberia. The patient has been isolated, and nurses are using gloves, masks and other protections to avoid infection through contact with bodily fluids, the officials said. On Monday, the severity of the patient’s illness and the fact that he had recently returned from Liberia had led to speculation that Ebola had appeared in Canada for the first time.
At a news conference in Geneva, W.H.O. officials discussing an outbreak of the disease in Guinea, which borders Liberia, said preliminary tests on the patient in Canada had been negative for Ebola. Liberia borders Guinea, where an Ebola outbreak has killed 59, and there are reports of small numbers of patients with similar symptoms in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Canadian health officials said samples had been sent to the national microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg, and final results were expected Tuesday. Tests on the man, hospitalized in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, determined that he did not have Ebola nor a related virus like Marburg, Lassa or Crimean-Congo, all of wihch cause hemorrhagic fever, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Southern Guinea is in the midst of an Ebola outbreak in which 59 of 80 suspected cases have been fatal. Reports of people with similar symptoms have emerged from neighboring regions of Liberia and Sierra Leone, but other diseases with a similar initial manifestation, like Lassa fever or severe malaria, are more common in West Africa. It was not immediately clear what he had, but Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, said it might be severe malaria.
Although Ebola, which causes death from hemorrhagic fever, is terrifying, there have been little more than 20 outbreaks of it or related viruses since it was discovered in 1976, and all have been contained rapidly by isolating victims and those who have been in contact with them. On the presumption that the patient might have a hemorrhagic fever virus, he was isolated and all medical personnel tending to him had to wear masks, gloves, goggles and other protections to prevent infection through contact with bodily fluid, a Saskatchewan health official said.
Although Ebola is a terrifying illness and there have been more than 20 outbreaks of it or related viruses since it was discovered in 1976, all have been contained rapidly by isolating victims and those who have been in contact with them.