ANKARA
Turkish Health Ministry has confirmed that the Nigerian woman who arrived at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport on Tuesday with symptoms of the Ebola virus is not carrying the deadly virus but suffering from malaria.
"The medical examinations on the patient that was put under segregation after arriving on a Turkish Airlines flight from Lagos in Nigeria to Istanbul showing Ebola symptoms have been completed and she is tested negative for the virus," the ministry said in a written statement Wednesday.
The 32-year-old Stella Omorowa and her four-year-old son were transferred to a nearby hospital and placed under surveillance after landing at the airport on Tuesday as she was complaining of high fever and vomiting.
They arrived in Istanbul to catch a connecting flight to Barcelona, Spain.
According to an earlier health ministry statement, the woman and son were both diagnosed with malaria.
Ebola, a contagious disease for which there is no definite treatment or cure, has been responsible for more than 1,000 deaths in West Africa since and the latest outbreak in February. The virus has been largely confined to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone except for two deaths in Nigeria and the death of a health worker in Spain.
Last week, Turkish Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said Turkey does not face any risk from Ebola. He told reporters that Turkey had taken measures against any possible outbreak but did not give any details of the precautions.
The tropical fever, which first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, can be transmitted to humans from wild animals and also spreads through contact with the body fluids of an infected person.
Doctors say common symptoms of Ebola include high fever and headaches, followed by vomiting and internal and external bleeding.
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