A passenger who traveled from Liberia through Morocco was quarantined on Wednesday by health authorities in Dubai. The Liberian traveler felt sick during the flight, but after being tested, he turned up negative for Ebola or other dangerous infectious disease.
On Wednesday, a Liberian traveler was isolated upon arrival at Dubai International Airport as a precautionary measure against spreading the deadly Ebola virus. The Ministry of Health said he was on a flight from Liberia, one of the countries affected by the current epidemic, through Morocco. Upon arrival in Dubai, he was isolated because he suffered from diarrhea, one of the Ebola symptoms. All passengers from the flight were tested to rule out infection.
After being monitored and proper tests were conducted, the Ministry said, the traveler wasn’t contracting the virus, as he had no fever, high temperature or any of the other Ebola symptoms. There are still no conclusive test results, but the possibility for Ebola is minimal. However, the quarantine was necessary because he traveled from Liberia, where thousands of people have already lost their lives from the disease.
On Monday, five passengers from an Emirates flight originating from Dubai were quarantined in Boston after reporting flu-like symptoms on the plane. Later, health authorities in the city said they didn’t meet the criteria for Ebola or any other infection of public health concern such as MERS or meningococcal infection.
The 2014 West African Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea has infected around 9,000 people and killed 4,493 of them. There is no cure or vaccine, although doctors are trying different treatments, including injecting the patient with antibodies from an Ebola survivor. Experimental drugs are also being under development, but according to experts, the disease will claim many more lives until it can be contained and treated successfully. This is the worst Ebola epidemic on record and is expected “only to get worse”, say epidemiologists from the U.S. CDC and the World Health Organization.
