Brazil investigates 2 possible Ebola cases
The health department in Rio de Janeiro state said it had also put safety measures in place after a man from Uganda developed "viral symptoms such as cough, chills, and diarrhea".
Fears that central Africa’s Ebola outbreak could ripple beyond the region sharpened after Brazilian health officials said they are tracking two possible cases in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
In Sao Paulo, authorities said a 37-year-old man from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — the center of the current outbreak — “exhibited symptoms such as fever, meeting the definition of a suspected case” of Ebola, according to a state government statement issued yesterday.
- Advertisement -
Although initial tests did not detect the Ebola virus, officials said the patient remains under observation and in isolation at a specialised infectious disease facility as a precaution.
The health department in Rio de Janeiro state said it had also put safety measures in place after a man from Uganda developed “viral symptoms such as cough, chills, and diarrhea”.
The developments come as the outbreak in the DRC continues to deepen. Since it was declared on 15 May, more than 1,000 suspected Ebola cases have been recorded there, including nearly 250 deaths, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.
Neighboring Uganda has also reported several confirmed infections and one death.
But international health officials believe the crisis may be broader than current figures show. The World Health Organization has warned that the outbreak in the DRC was likely spreading before it was formally detected, suggesting its true scale could be far greater.
Even so, Sao Paulo’s government said that despite the suspected infection, “the technical assessment indicates that the risk of the disease being introduced into Brazil and South America remains very low”.
As of yesterday, 263 confirmed Ebola cases had been reported in the DRC and Uganda, Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said.
More than 1,100 suspected cases are under investigation, and 43 people are confirmed to have died from the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, Kaseya wrote in an FT op-ed published today.
