Two U.S Hospitals Report Patients Undergoing Ebola Tests
By Michael B. Marois Aug 20, 2014 12:43 PM ET
Blood samples from two patients at separate U.S. hospitals are being tested for Ebola as the worst outbreak of the deadly virus on record spreads across Africa. Health officials from both states said neither person is likely to have the disease.
Officials at the hospitals, in New Mexico and California, said yesterday that as a precaution they are sending the samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to rule out the presence of the virus.
The outbreak, the worst since the virus was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976, has sickened 2,240 people, killing at least 1,229 through Aug. 16, in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and, most recently, Nigeria, according to the World Health Organization. The CDC has said Ebola poses no substantial risk to the U.S.
One patient is a 30-year-old woman in New Mexico who recently returned from Sierra Leone. She showed up at a local hospital complaining of a sore throat, headache, muscle aches and reported having a fever. The state health department said in a statement she had no known exposure to Ebola and isn’t considered a probable case.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-20/california-hospital-treating-possible-ebola-patient.html