A nurse who was bitten by an Ebola patient while working in West Africa is being flown to Switzerland as a precaution, Swiss authorities said.
A child infected with Ebola attacked and bit the unidentified man, who was working for an international organization in Sierra Leone, on Saturday, the health ministry said.
Since the nurse was wearing protective gear, he is unlikely to have contracted the disease, the ministry said, adding that the man, who was flown to Switzerland by a private transport company Monday, will be kept under observation at Geneva's University Hospital for the incubation period of three weeks.
This will be the first medical transport to Switzerland from the Ebola-affected region, the Associated Press reported.
The Ebola outbreak started in Guinea's remote southeast in February and has since spread across the region. Since it was first recorded in 1976 in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 2,500 people have died in the outbreak from more than 4,200 infections in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.
Symptoms of the highly infectious disease are diarrhea, vomiting and internal and external bleeding.
On Thursday, a team of nine people were attacked in a remote area of southeastern Guinea while they were attempting to educate locals on the numerous risks of the Ebola virus, a government spokesman said. Eight of them were reported to be dead.
Meanwhile, the fight against the Ebola outbreak received some major boost after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged to donate $50 million to help struggling West Africa contain the disease, Agence France-Presse reported two weeks ago.
