Just as Liberia is celebrating the end of the Ebola outbreak in that country, a nurse in Italy who had worked in Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with the disease. A patient was admitted to a hospital in Connecticut for possible Ebola infection after recently arriving from Liberia.
In the case of the man in Connecticut, officials with the UConn Health Center in Farmington say that other diagnoses are more likely, but that a diagnosis of Ebola cannot be ruled out because of the man's symptoms of fever and muscle aches, and because he was in Liberia from November 2014 to April 2015. He was hospitalized at the center and is in isolation. He is said to be in good condition.
The man had been in Liberia to give administrative help with the Ebola outbreak there working in treatment centers, but had not been in direct contact with patients with Ebola. Fever and muscle aches could be caused by many diseases, including malaria.
"The patient is at very low risk for Ebola Virus and in fact he probably has another illness or infection, but out of an abundance of caution, we activated our Ebola virus disease protocol," said Paul Skolnik, M.D., chair of medicine at UConn Health
The nurse in Italy had returned from West Africa to the Italian island of Sardinia on May 8. As with the Connecticut man, he also worked in relief efforts in the outbreak, but in Sierra Leone. He developed symptoms and was admitted to the infectious disease ward of a hospital on Sardinia. The nurse is being transferred to an infectious disease hospital in Rome, which has had experience treating patients with Ebola.
Liberia declared itself free of Ebola on May 9 and had an official public holiday in celebration. The outbreak is still ongoing in Guinea and Sierra Leone. More than 11,000 people have died, which is five times more than all other outbreaks of Ebola since the disease was identified.
