Hospitalized Nigerian tourist does not have Ebola
Jerusalem health officials say woman has digestive tract infection, not deadly virus
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A Nigerian woman who was placed in quarantine Friday after arriving in Israel with high fever does not have Ebola, Israeli health officials said Saturday.
Doctors at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center said she was suffering from an infection of the digestive tract, Israel Radio reported.
The Health Ministry decided she does not need to remain in quarantine. The patient’s condition improved markedly on Saturday after she was given antibiotics.
Other health officials added that the woman — who worked in Nigeria’s public health system and had come in contact with patients at local hospitals – had not been in contact with at-risk populations for the past month. If she had contracted the deadly virus a month ago, they said, the disease would have been much more advanced than her symptoms indicated.
The woman, a tourist who arrived in Israel on Wednesday, admitted herself to the hospital suffering from high fever.
The Ebola epidemic, which emerged in Guinea at the start of the year before spreading to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, is the worst outbreak since the hemorrhagic fever was first identified in 1976. More than 3,000 people appear to have been infected, and 1,552 have died, according to the latest World Health Organization figures.
Last month, the Foreign Ministry published a warning urging Israelis against travel to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The Times of Israel Community.