Ebola scare hits Tyrol as woman's body foundThe 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. The risk of
infection is extremely low. The WHO reports that all of the persons who
came into contact with the previous Ebola deaths in Nigeria are under
observation. Overall, the risk of infection in Nigeria is much lower
than in the other three countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Two cases in Europe of suspected ebola, including one in Germany, have proven to be negative.
http://www.thelocal.at/20140817/ebola-scare-hits-tyrol-when-body-found
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