No Ebola case in Turkey

ANKARA

There is no Ebola case in Turkey, a high ranking health official told the Anadolu Agency on Tuesday, as concerns were raised after a foreign national traveling by plane from Nigeria had high fever and vomited on the flight.

Turkish people can feel safe, said Husem Hatipoglu, the head of the Turkish Health Ministry's Directorate General of Health for Border and Coastal Areas.

A 23-year-old Italian woman, Elisa Sedoni, took Turkish Airlines flight on August 22 from Nigeria's Kano city to Istanbul. Sedoni was quarantined and transferred to a nearby hospital upon landing as she was complaining of high fever and vomiting. 

This raised concerns that the women might have caught the Ebola virus and might have infected others.

Hatipoglu confirmed that medical specialists examined the young woman and diagnosed her illness as acute gastroenteritis, known also as a "stomach flu" which is accompanied with diarrhea and vomiting, and is typically caused by a viral or bacterial infection.

A statement issued earlier on Tuesday by the Turkish Health Ministry said that Sedoni was diagnosed with malaria in Nigeria and treated accordingly.

Hatipoglu said that "it was determined the woman was not carrying either malaria or the ebola virus." 

Sedoni was discharged Tuesday from an Istanbul hospital.

www.aa.com.tr/en