Ebola In Israel? Nigerian Woman Hospitalized For Fever, Placed Under Quarantine

Medical officials in Israel were testing a Nigerian woman for a possible case of Ebola Friday after she was admitted to a hospital with a fever. If confirmed, it would be Israel’s first case -- and one of just a handful outside Africa -- of the virus that has killed more than 2,000 people since the current outbreak began in March.

The woman, identified as a health worker in Nigeria, arrived in Israel several days ago, Reuters reports. Doctors have placed her under quarantine as a precaution. “It is possible that she is suffering from another viral complaint, but we are taking every precaution while we determine whether this could be Ebola,” a spokeswoman at Jerusalem’s Shaarei Zedek Medical Centre said.

Preliminary tests showed that the woman’s fever probably stems from a bacterial infection rather than Ebola, Professor Yonatan Halevi, the hospital’s general manager, told Haaretz. While the probability that she has Ebola is considered low, her blood samples were reportedly sent to a separate facility for additional testing.

More people have died in the current Ebola outbreak than in all previous outbreaks of the virus, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Most of the cases are concentrated in the West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.