MOSCOW, August 9 (RIA Novosti) - Canadian medical workers have isolated a patient showing symptoms of what could possibly be Ebola virus upon his arrival from Nigeria, Agence France-Press wrote Saturday citing Canadian health officials.
"As a precautionary measure, Osler put in heightened infection control measures in the emergency department including isolating the patient," the hospital said in a statement.
The unnamed man undergoes treatment at the William Osler Health System’s Brampton Civic Hospital in Toronto's suburb. If the diagnosis is confirmed, this would be the first Ebola case in Canada's Ontario.
Ebola symptoms resemble those of flu, and include fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and bleeding.
On Friday, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the country over the Ebola outbreak, which has affected seven people and claimed two lives in Africa’s most populous country.
Nigeria was the latest country to be affected by the virus and the third after Liberia and Sierra Leone to declare the state of emergency due to the deadly virus.
The total death toll in the worst Ebola outbreak in history and the first to occur in West Africa reached 961 people on August 6, and the number of the infected people rose to 1,779, according to the World Health Organization.
WHO announced the virus outbreak an emergency situation of international importance on Friday.
The virus has killed four people in Guinea, where the outbreak originated, 12 in Sierra Leone and 12 in Liberia.
There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for the Ebola virus, which has a case fatality rate of up to 90 percent. Medical workers use rehydration fluid and antibiotics to fight infections. Some groups have called for new drugs to be rolled out in Africa after two US aid workers infected with the virus responded positively to an experimental treatment known as Zmapp.
Canadian Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation’s has recently come up with experimental Ebola treatment for potential human use. Earlier this week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) modified its clinical hold status on the treatment to enable its potential use in humans infected with the virus, once it is tested on volunteers.
Other healthcare specialists and research centers, including the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), say Ebola treatments should not be used on humans and that the drugs are unsafe.
