Hong Kong makes Ebola ‘contingency’ measures
Hong Kong said on Wednesday it was quarantining all people from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia who were showing Ebola-like symptoms on arrival in the city, as fears grow worldwide about the spread of the deadly virus.
Ebola has so far killed 670 people in the three west African countries, with 1,200 cases reported there and another in Nigeria, and the European Union is increasingly anxious that the outbreak could reach Europe.
Media reports in Hong Kong on Wednesday said that a woman who had visited Kenya had briefly been quarantined on her return to Hong Kong.
The South China Morning Post, citing an unnamed hospital source, said the woman had travelled to Kenya for a 17-day holiday and was briefly quarantined when she arrived back.
A health official confirmed to AFP that a woman showing symptoms, including fever and vomiting, had tested negative for Ebola after returning from Africa.
Mr Dominic Tsang, chief infection control officer for the city’s hospital authority, did not say where in Africa the woman had travelled from but insisted it was neither Guinea, Sierra Leone nor Liberia.
HK patient discharged
“As of today the fever had subsided and she is stable. She doesn’t fall into the criteria (of a suspected Ebola case). She was discharged earlier today,” Mr Tsang said.
Hong Kong is extremely cautious and wary about the spread of viruses since Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome swept through the city in 2003, killing 299 people and infecting around 1,800.
Source: AFP
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