The Howard University Hospital in Washington DC has on Friday admitted a patient with symptoms “that could be associated with Ebola”, CNN reports. The yet unnamed patient has recently traveled to Nigeria, and has presented the first symptoms possibly associated with the dangerous disease upon returning to the country.
“In an abundance of caution, we have activated the appropriate infection control protocols, including isolating the patient,” hospital spokesperson Kerry-Ann Hamilton has said in a treatment, noting that the medical team of the hospital is currently closely monitoring and evaluating the patient in close collaboration with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Health Department.
If confirmed, this will be the second case of Ebola on American soil. The first diagnosed patient, 41 year old Liberian citizen Thomas Eric Duncan is currently under treatment and observation at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. According to a friend, Duncan has traveled to the US to visit friends and family. This was his first trip to the United States, and it seems not to have gone well at all.
The yet unidentified Washington patient is not the only person currently being monitored for a possible Ebola infection. According to CNN, an inmate at the Cobb Country Jail in Georgia is also showing some of the symptoms of the disease, and he is currently being tested. According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, the inmate had a low risk of becoming infected, and the first round of tests has come back negative, but further tests are under way.
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The Ebola epidemic currently ravaging in West Africa has started in December 2013 in Guinea. Later it spread to Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, the United States and to Frankfurt, Germany. Since the first case the virus has infected thousands of citizens of the above countries.