Suspected case of Ebola emerges in Islamabad

41-year-old man arrived from Uganda last month; this is the third suspected case in the country

ISLAMABAD: A 41-year-old man has been kept under isolation at PIMS Hospital in Islamabad on suspicion of contracting the deadly Ebola virus.

The patient, identified as Tasavvur Hussain, has been kept at an isolation ward in the hospital. However, he is not being observed by doctors as kits for protection of doctors are not available.

Hailing from Chakwal, Hussain returned from Uganda last month and was shifted from Shifa International Hospital to PIMS today.

According to initial reports, the patient has been isolated as a precaution owing to symptoms similar to that of Ebola, even though he has returned from Uganda which is not an Ebola-infected country.

This is the third suspected Ebola case in Pakistan. Yesterday, less than an hour after landing at Jinnah International Airport on Monday morning, 47-year-old Muhammad Haroon was rushed to the hospital. The airport’s health officials were certain he had the Ebola virus.

Haroon arrived in Karachi at 6:25am via Qatar Airways from Monrovia – the capital of Liberia, one of the West African countries hit hardest by the outbreak of the Ebola haemorrhagic fever. Sources claimed that Haroon, who works as a sales person for an electric generator store, had a fever when he landed.

His blood samples have been sent to specialised laboratories abroad.

Further, last week, Zulfiqar Ahmed, 40, from Chiniot was taken to the hospital in critical condition and was kept under isolation as doctors feared that he had contracted the virus during his visit to the Togolese Republic in West Africa.

Ahmed died a day after he was admitted to the hospital. His blood samples, however, showed that he did not have Ebola but died due to Hepatitis C and Dengue.

Ebola virus has infected over 15,000 people in West Africa since it was first reported in Guinea in March, according to the WHO. Although the number of cases in Liberia appears to be falling, Sierra Leone and Guinea are witnessing a steep rise in the number people who are newly infected. Mali is currently fighting its second outbreak.

Ebola virus disease, formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans. It is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through direct contact with bodily fluids of an infected patient.