AP Media Report
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
A possible Ebola case has been detected in Canada after a passenger returned from Africa where dozens have died from the virus.
Denise Werker, joint director of health in Saskatchewan province in western Canada, said the casualty had been in Liberia and had developed the symptoms after landing in Canada. He or she would not have been contagious when travelling and was now in isolation pending test results.
"All we know at this point is that we have a person who is critically ill who travelled from a country where these diseases occur."
— Denise Werker, joint director of health in Saskatchewan province, western Canada.
Health officials in Guinea are battling to contain west Africa's first outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus as neighbouring Liberia reported its first suspected victims. At least 59 people are known to have died in Guinea's southern forests and there are six suspected cases in Liberia which, if confirmed, would mark the first spread of the highly contagious pathogen into another country.
Transmission to humans can come from wild animals, or from direct contact from another human's blood, faeces or sweat, or by sexual contact and the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses. To date, no treatment or vaccine is available for the Ebola pathogen.
