Russia hospitalizes Red Cross worker suspected of contracting Ebola

A passenger aboard a flight from Moscow to Vladivostok was hospitalized on February 1 on suspicion of having contracted the Ebola virus. The man is a Red Cross worker who recently completed a tour in Africa. Doctors are sending his medical samples to laboratory in Novosibirsk for analysis.

According to local officials in Primorsky Krai, the airline passenger was hospitalized on suspicion of being sick with Ebola, though doctors have yet to reach a diagnosis. The Ministry of Health says the patient shows no Ebola symptoms and isn’t likely infected with this particular disease.

• In January 2015, a plane full of people was quarantined at a Moscow airport for several hours, after a woman aboard was suspected of suffering from Ebola symptoms. Emergency crew later determined that she merely had a respiratory illness.
• According data released by the World Health Organization in December 2014, the Ebola epidemic has claimed the lives of more than 7,500 people, and more than 19,300 people have been infected worldwide. On January 25, 2015, WHO’s director-general said the spread of Ebola in parts of West Africa is the “largest, longest, most severe, and most complex [outbreak] in the nearly four-decade history of this disease.”