Global panic only just beginning: suspect cases popping up all over the globe

October 2014 – HEALTH – A person in Quebec with symptoms of the Ebola virus is being treated in a hospital in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. According to the regional health and social services agency, the patient was recently in contact with people who may have been exposed to Ebola. “I have to highlight that our suspicion is very weak,” said Dr. Éric Lampron-Goulet, a regional public health official. “We did a test out of precaution.” Lampron-Goulet said the patient has a fever and that, combined with having contact with West African travelers, is sufficient to merit tests. He said the patient has been isolated while the tests are underway. Tests have been sent to the public health laboratory in Quebec and results are expected within 24 to 36 hours. He also said Quebec’s health system is prepared for Ebola is following the procedure for treating suspicious cases. –CBC

Brazil: Fears are growing that the deadly Ebola virus has hit a new continent as a missionary in Brazil undergoes tests for the infection. If the Brazilian case is confirmed, it would mean the disease has spread to South America for the first time. The suspected patient is a 47-year-old man from Guinea, one of the African countries that have been ravaged by the disease. He has been described in local media as a missionary and he was taken in an air force plane from the southern state of Parana to the National Infectious Disease Institute in Rio de Janeiro on Friday morning. It came after he arrived at a health centre in the town of Cascavel with a fever the previous afternoon. The health ministry said today that the patient was ‘in good shape’ and his slight fever had now subsided. Minister Arthur Chioro noted that the patient had been in Brazil for the maximum incubation period for the Ebola virus of 21 days. The result of a test for the virus should be available by early Saturday, he said. –Mail

Czechoslovakia: Czech Republic registers its first case of suspected Ebola, who returned from Liberia 22 days ago, Czech chief sanitary officer Vladimir Valenta said Thursday. The man, 56, has fever but no other Ebola symptoms, and was in isolation at Prague’s Na Bulovce hospital, Xinhua quoted Valenta as saying. (Read: Ebola facts — frequently asked questions (FAQ))‘As the only symptom has been fever so far, we hope that it might be another disease, for instance, malaria,’ he said, adding that all people whom the patient has met since his return are being checked. Hospital sources said the results of tests conducted are expected Friday. –Health Site

France: A French woman has been hospitalized with Ebola-like symptoms, which she was suspected of contracting while in Liberia. The patient was being confined in an isolation ward at Bichat Hospital in Paris, Xinhua cited news channel BFMTV as saying Friday. A building at Cergy-Pontoise in Paris northern suburbs was sealed off Thursday evening after two men of African origin had developed Ebola symptoms, including fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding. However, the two men tested negative. On Sep 19, a French nurse working with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) returned home after being infected with Ebola virus during a mission in Liberia. The nurse, the first Ebola case reported in France, left hospital last weekend. She was hospitalized in Begin Military Hospital near Paris where she received “experimental treatment.” Since March the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 3,865 people and infected more than 7,400 others, according to the latest report of the World Health Organization (WHO). –Business Standard

Canada advises citizens to leave Ebola-hit countries: The Canadian government advised its citizens to leave the West African countries hardest hit by Ebola, while taking measures at its own borders to screen for potentially exposed travelers. “We are asking Canadians living in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to consider leaving by commercial means while they are still available,” Health Minister Rona Ambrose said on Friday. The minister also said that anyone traveling to Canada from the countries affected by the epidemic will be screened at airports. Ambrose stressed that “the risk to Canadians here at home is very low,” but said, as a precaution, quarantine officers will check those who may have been exposed to the hemorrhagic virus for fever and “determine whether additional public health measures are required.”

The West African Ebola outbreak erupted at the beginning of the year, killing nearly 4,000 people so far — roughly half of those infected. This week saw the first Ebola death in the United States, while a nurse in Spain is fighting for her life after being infected while treating an Ebola patient who died. The disease causes fever, diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases internal and external bleeding. It is spread by contact and the exchange of bodily fluids. –Yahoo News