TORONTO – The director of infection control at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital says it’s probably not the last time a patient will be tested for Ebola.
Allison McGeer says the occasional patient returning from West Africa with flu-like symptoms will need to be managed safely, as these symptoms are present in cases of Ebola.
Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins announced this morning that a patient who was placed in the isolation unit of a Toronto-area hospital has tested negative for the Ebola virus.
The person was admitted to Brampton Civic Hospital with flu-like symptoms after returning from Nigeria, one of the West African nations currently battling an Ebola outbreak that has killed nearly one-thousand people.
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McGeer says although the amount of traffic between West Africa and Canada is limited, influenza is very common and these kinds of precautionary measures may need to be taken.
She says Canadians at large do not need to worry about their safety, as the risk to the general population is “as close to zero as you can get.”
Transmission of Ebola from person to person is largely through direct contact with blood and body fluids.
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