A health alert has been issued in northern Italy after two aid staff developed Ebola-like symptoms.
At the least 220 people have died of the virus within the Democratic Republic of Congo since an outbreak was declared earlier this month.
Two aid staff who returned to Lombardy after a three-month trip to Uganda at the moment are presenting with symptoms consistent with the disease, including fever, nausea, vomiting, and intestinal problems.
They’ve been taken to a hospital in Milan, which is supplied to take care of high-risk infectious diseases.
Lombardy’s regional welfare minister has tried to quell fears a few possible spread of the deadly disease.
He told a press conference: ‘There continues to be no certainty that that is Ebola. We’re hopeful that they might be negative.’
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The danger to the general public stays low.
The strain of Ebola causing the present spread is the Bundibugyo strain, which doesn’t have a vaccine currently. Scientists in Oxford are working on one, but it surely likely won’t be available for at the least six months.
This weekend, at the least 18 people possibly infected with Ebola fled a hospital after it was attacked multiple times by grieving families.
Attacks by residents on makeshift hospitals in Ituri province, the centre of the outbreak, have risen within the last week.
Some 18 Ebola patients escaped Mongbwalu general referral hospital on Saturday as people burnt tents arrange by Médecins Sans Frontières.
Dr Richard Lokodu, medical director of the power, told Reuters: ‘We’ve got one confirmed case of Ebola that continues to flow into in the neighborhood and evade the response.’
A suspected patient who was in critical condition died within the second attack while attempting to flee from his bed.
The attackers, Dr Lokodu said, desired to take the bodies of the Ebola victims by force for burial.
Ebola could be contracted through contact with the bodily fluids of a dead person; the virus has spread during mourning and funeral proceedings in previous outbreaks.
Local officials say the attacks are right down to a lack of know-how, with some seeing Ebola as a ‘white man’s invention’ or a cash-grab by hospitals.
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