Israel Quarantines Nigerian Tourist Feared Infected With Ebola
Medical workers of the Liberian Red Cross, wearing a protective suit, carry the body of a victim of the Ebola virus in a bag in the small city of Banjol. Image by Getty Images
A Nigerian visiting Israel was quarantined in Jerusalem for fear she may have contracted the Ebola virus.
The patient, a tourist who works as a nurse in Nigeria and arrived in Israel several days ago, was admitted to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem with fever, Israel Radio reported on Friday. The hospital put the woman in quarantine as part of its protocol for treating patients feared to be infected with Ebola.
But a spokesperson for the Israeli Health Ministry said that “the probability that the woman has contracted Ebola is low.”
On Thursday, the World Health Organization said that more than 1,900 people have died in West Africa’s Ebola outbreak. There have been 3,500 confirmed or probable cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
More than 40 percent of the deaths have occurred in the last three weeks, the W.H.O. said, suggesting that the epidemic is fast outpacing efforts to control it, according to the BBC.
On Wednesday, the first British person to contract Ebola during the outbreak was discharged from a hospital after making a full recovery.
Symptoms of the virus, which spreads through bodily fluids, include high fever, bleeding and central nervous system damage. Fatality rate can reach 90 percent, though the current outbreak has mortality rate of about 55 percent.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
