German authorities are ready to track possibly hundreds of people who may have come into contact with a man suspected of having the highly dangerous and contagious Ebola virus.
The man, named only as Olaf U, is being treated under strict security in a Berlin isolation clinic. He was taken there by helicopter three days after returning to his home town, Markendorf, from the Ivory Coast, and developing a high fever and extensive bleeding. All other patients at the Virchow clinic, in the Wedding area of Berlin, were evacuated.
The man is in a stable condition and although he is losing blood he is not bleeding heavily enough to warrant transfusion, according to a clinic spokeswoman.
The man's hospital bed is covered with an air-tight isolation tent while doctors and nurses treating him are wearing chemical protection suits and are not leaving the clinic between shifts. Air filtering equipment is being used in the man's room and his clothes and all disposables from the treatment have been burned in a special incinerator.
A spokeswoman for the clinic said blood tests were being conducted on the man but that it would be another three days before it was known if he had the Ebola virus. He could also have another kind of the so-called "viral haemorrhaging fevers" such as Lassa fever, Marburg fever or Dengue fever.
The 39-year-old man had been on two Swissair flights.
Officials from the Berlin health authority told a press conference yesterday that the situation was under control and that the risk of infection to the wider population was negligible. They said they had the passenger lists from the planes but as the sick man had not been losing bodily fluids while on the flights, they would not be contacting anyone until further information was available.
The man's 41-year-old wife and the friend who collected them from the airport are under medical observation in Frankfurt but are said not to have developed any symptoms. Local health authorities have contacted two other members of the man's family.
The Ebola virus, named after a small river in the Congo (former Zaire) where it was discovered, is often described as the most dangerous disease in the world. Nearly 90 per cent of those who contract it die from organ failure due to extensive internal and external bleeding.