Ebola scare hits Tyrol as woman's body found

The discovery of a woman's body whose cause of death is as yet unknown has triggered precautionary testing for the possible presence of the highly infectious ebola disease in the town of Vomp in Tyrol.

The 48-year-old woman recently traveled to Austria from Nigeria via Germany.  Her body was found on Saturday night in her apartment.

A friend of the deceased notified police when the woman was not reachable.  Police believe they can rule out a violent crime as the cause of death.

Because of her recent travels, and since the cause of death is unknown, public health officials decided to take the precaution of testing her blood and urine for possible exposure to the ebola virus.

All persons who came into contact with the woman's body wore protective clothing.  The results of the laboratory tests are expected in the early hours of Monday morning.

According to experts in infectious diseases, it is extremely unlikely that ebola was the cause of death in this case, but officials are taking no chances.  This is important since the World Health Organization (WHO) believes that the number of cases in circulation has been drastically underestimated until now.