The patient who was admitted to the Radboudumc in Nijmegen on Thursday with a suspected Ebola infection was not infected with the virus after all. The hospital reports this.
The patient was admitted due to a low suspicion of Ebola. A test to show whether the patient indeed had the virus was negative.
“This means that blood tests show that this patient does not have Ebola. The patient is receiving the necessary care in a normal care department,” the Nijmegen hospital reported on Saturday.
From Zwolle to Nijmegen
The patient was taken to Radboudumc via the Isala hospital in Zwolle on Thursday evening. “The person has not been to the hospital and has been transported to a specialized hospital in consultation with the GGD,” an Isala spokesperson said on Friday.
Radboudumc and RIVM were previously unable to say anything about the identity of the patient. He or she was initially in a specially equipped department for serious infectious diseases.
According to RIVM spokesperson Jan Brouwer de Koning, low suspicions of Ebola are more common in the Netherlands. He cannot immediately provide exact figures. “But such a suspicion is almost always negative. The risk is estimated as low.”
What is Ebola?
Ebola is a serious, extremely contagious disease and often has a fatal outcome. Symptoms begin with fever and muscle aches, followed by vomiting and diarrhea. In severe cases there is also internal and external bleeding.
The disease was first identified in 1976 near the Ebola River in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. A rare variant of the deadly Ebola virus recently broke out in Central Africa.
Human-to-human transmission occurs through direct contact with bodily fluids, such as blood or vomit, from an infected person.
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