Patient at Pennsylvania hospital is being tested for Ebola

Ebola
The Ebola virus, isolated in November 2014 from patient blood samples obtained in Mali. The virus was isolated on Vero cells in a BSL-4 suite at Rocky Mountain Laboratories. Credit: NIAID

A patient is being tested for Ebola at a hospital in Philadelphia, although officials don't believe the patient has the potentially deadly illness.

Penn Medicine says preliminary testing at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania indicates the person has another condition. They did not release the patient's name.

Officials say the testing is being done "in an abundance of caution" because the patient met screening criteria for Ebola. They say it's unknown if the patient had traveled to a location that has the disease or came in contact with someone who does.

An Ebola outbreak was declared just over six months ago in the eastern part of Congo. It's that African country's 10th outbreak and the world's second largest recorded.

WPVI-TV in Philadelphia was the first to report the patient was being tested.

© 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Citation: Patient at Pennsylvania hospital is being tested for Ebola (2019, February 6) retrieved 20 April 2024 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-patient-pennsylvania-hospital-ebola.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

Suspected Ebola case in Sweden: officials

3 shares

Feedback to editors