Suspected Ebola case in Sweden
Friday January 04 2019
The hospital in Enköping, Sweden, which has received a case of suspected Ebola, according to health care officials. PHOTO | FREDRIK SANDBERG | AFP
A man is being treated in isolation at Sweden’s Uppsala University Hospital on suspicion of infection with Ebola after visiting Burundi, the regional authority said on Friday.
The hospital’s chief medical officer said the young man had been in Burundi for around three weeks, and was exhibiting classic symptoms of haemorrhagic fever, including vomiting blood. Test results were expected later on Friday.
The patient is being treated at the infectious diseases clinic at Uppsala, about 70 kilometres north of Stockholm.
Symptoms of the highly contagious and often deadly virus can take up to three weeks to appear.
There is no known Ebola outbreak in Burundi, but it borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been fighting an outbreak for almost six months. The disease has killed 356 of the 585 people known to have been infected.
The epidemic in a volatile part of Congo is the second worst ever, according to the World Health Organisation.
The largest outbreak was one in 2013-2016 in West Africa, where more than 28,000 cases were confirmed.
The patient in Uppsala was first admitted to hospital in the nearby town of Enkoping. The emergency clinic at that hospital has now been closed, and staff who came in contact with him are being looked after.