An Angolan man has died in Zimbabwe's prime northwestern resort town of Victoria Falls in a suspected case of the highly contagious Ebola disease, the British Sunday Mail newspaper has reported.
The paper quoted the provincial medical director for the region as saying the patient, a cross-border trader, died on Christmas Day after being admitted to hospital with symptoms consistent with the virus.
If confirmed, it would be Zimbabwe's first case of the deadly virus, which kills up to 90 per cent of infected people and for which there is no known cure.
Health minister Mr David Parirenyatwa said samples from the man had been taken to South Africa for laboratory tests.
"At the moment it is only a suspected case and we will only know the cause of the death when we get laboratory test results," Mr Parirenyatwa told the Sunday Mail.
Mr Parirenyatwa and other Health ministry officials were not immediately available for comment today.
Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids and causes illness quickly - leading to internal bleeding and shock.
The disease is named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, where the virus was first discovered in 1976.