Posb. Ebola case: man rode train, bus in Netherlands

[update, Monday, 6 October 2014]: The public health authority for the Netherlands says the man has malaria, and he has tested negative for Ebola. A man who flew to the Netherlands from Sierra Leone rode on the train and a bus before arriving at a Dordrecht hospital, where he is being treated for symptoms of Ebola virus. Results of the tests to determine if he has the deadly virus came up negative. Further testing shows he has malaria, the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment reported early Monday morning. The man arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam on Saturday. He travelled 85 kilometers to Dordrecht, Zuid Holland, where he visited the general practitioner’s office at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital. He was admitted to the facility, and the GPs office was closed to the public. He was later transferred to the Erasmus Medical Center in nearby Rotterdam, reports say. “There are people who have been within a meter of having contact with the man,” regional health official Nance de Graaf told newspaper AD. “It should be sorted out with whom the man has had more contact.” De Graaf stressed they do not want people to panic simply because they were also on a train from Schiphol Airport that day. Seven patients and staff members of the Dordrecht hospital were quarantined as a precaution, including a patient and two staff members working the GP’s desk. A spokesman told AD that he did not come into contact with anyone at the Rotterdam facility. “He went directly from the ambulance to the isolation room,” the spokesman said. Workers assisting the man were in full-body protective clothing. Those who were isolated will have their temperatures taken repeatedly over the next three weeks as doctors and nurses watch for developing symptoms.