Health officials in Stockholm, Sweden confirmed that a man who was recently hospitalized does not carry the deadly Ebola virus.
The unidentified person went to a local clinic and complained about stomach pains and had a high fever on Sunday evening. After the staff had discovered that he recently traveled to a West African country, he was immediately transferred to a quarantined facility at Stockholm's Karolinska University Hospital.
Communicable disease specialist Ake Ortqvist said that the patient was given tests to see if he was infected with the deadly virus, and they turned out negative.
"We can conclude that there are no signs whatsoever that the patient has contracted Ebola," Dr. Ortqvist told the Wall Street Journal. He also stated that there is a low chance of an Ebola outbreak in the country.
The patient is currently receiving additional tests at the same hospital to establish the cause of his symptoms.
"When people come home with fevers from infected areas it's most often due to other illnesses such as salmonella, malaria or common colds," said Oertqvist, quoted by Medical Xpress.
Meanwhile, the Malaga Regional Hospital in Spain announced that one of their patients tested positive with the Ebola virus. The 40-year-old patient was admitted to the hospital on Sunday because of a high fever. He was immediately isolated after admitting that he recently visited Nigeria. The hospital administered the tests and confirmed that he was positive on Tuesday.
In August, a Spanish priest died because of the disease shortly after he was transported from Liberia to Spain to receive better medical attention.
In Europe, suspected cases of Ebola have been reported from different parts of the continent. However, health authorities stated that these cases often turn out to be false alarms.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus has claimed 1,552 lives out of 3,069 cases since the start of the outbreak. The majority of the recorded infections centered in Liberia. The Ebola virus is already threatening the stability of the affected and neighboring countries in West Africa, and cases are expected to increase in the next two weeks.
