Ebola Scare Hits Brazil As Patient Shows Symptoms

 

A 46-year-old Brazilian man who visited Guinea is being tested for Ebola.

 

Authorities have also isolated a public health unit where he first sought medical attention, Brazil's Health Minister Marcelo Castro said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

 

The man whose identity is yet to be revealed, arrived in Brazil on November 6, from Guinea and developed high fever with muscle pains and headaches two days later.

Guinea is one of three West African countries, along with Liberia and Sierra Leone, that have suffered with the most deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus.

The man sought medical help at an emergency room in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Brazil's southeastern state of Minas Gerais, the ministry said.

The man was then quarantined and will be flown in a military plane on Wednesday to Rio de Janeiro, where the government has set up a lab to test blood samples for Ebola according to international security protocols. Medical workers and other patients who had contact with the man are being monitored by health officials, according to the ministry's statement.

Castro said Brazil immediately informed international health authorities of the suspected case.