Brazil’s public health system has been put on alert after two patients in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were flagged as possible Ebola cases, raising fresh anxiety that a deadly outbreak centered in central Africa could spill farther afield.
In Sao Paulo, a 37-year-old man from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — where the outbreak has been concentrated — “exhibited symptoms such as fever, meeting the definition of a suspected case” of Ebola, the Sao Paulo state government said in a statement yesterday.
Officials stressed that initial tests did not detect the Ebola virus. Even so, the patient remains under monitoring and has been isolated as a precaution at a specialised infectious disease facility, the statement said.
Rio de Janeiro state reported a separate alert, saying it had activated safety protocols after a man from Uganda showed “viral symptoms such as cough, chills, and diarrhea”.
According to an email from the Rio city government to AFP, the patient tested positive for malaria yesterday evening and “the case remains under investigation”.
The developments come as health authorities in Africa continue to track a fast-moving outbreak. There have been more than 1,000 suspected cases of Ebola in the DRC since the outbreak was declared on 15 May, including nearly 250 deaths, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.
Several infections and one death have been confirmed in neighboring Uganda.
The World Health Organization has cautioned that the outbreak’s full footprint in the DRC may be far larger than current totals suggest, noting it is thought to have been circulating before it was detected.
Despite the suspected case in Sao Paulo, the state government said “the technical assessment indicates that the risk of the disease being introduced into Brazil and South America remains very low”.
As of yesterday, 263 confirmed Ebola cases have been reported in the DRC and Uganda, the director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Jean Kaseya said.
In an FT op-ed published today, Kaseya said more than 1,100 suspected cases are being investigated and 43 people are confirmed to have died as a result of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.
