Ebola Increasingly Unlikely Cause of British Man’s Death in Skopje

Medical staff leave hotel Super 8 after paying a visit to quarantined guests and personnel in the hotel in Skopje, Macedonia, 10 October 2014. Photo EPA/BGNES

It is increasingly unlikely Ebola virus had caused the death of a British national in Macedonia, Macedonian news agency MIA reported on Saturday.

Epidemiologic evidence provided by British authorities indicates the man who died of suspected Ebola at a clinic in Skopje earlier this week, had neither visited nor stayed in a country where the deadly virus is known to exist over the past few months, MIA said.

The man died on Thursday aftrenoon shorly after he was admitted to the Skopje Clinic for Infectious Diseases with with severe stomach ache, internal bleeding and increased temperature - symptoms compatible with Ebola. Staff and guests at Skopje hotel Super 8, where the British man had stayed before he was taken to hospital as well as anyone who came into contact with him, have been put in quarantine.

Ebola has killed nearly 4,000 people in West Africa since March in the largest outbreak on record.

According to Dr Jovanka Kostovska of the Macedonian Health Ministry's infectious diseases commission, a laboratory in Hamburg, Germany has already received the blood and tissue samples from the dead patient sent by Macedonian authorties and the results are expected to be received later on Saturday, MIA said.

Until those results are in, however, Macedonia will stick to the protocol of the World Health Organisation, assuming the patient had been infected with Ebola virus.

There is no other suspected case of Ebola in Macedonia at the moment but country's healthcare system is prepared to cope with the worst-case scenario, Kostovska added.

 

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