A health alert has been issued in northern Italy after two aid workers developed Ebola-like symptoms.
At least 220 people have died of the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo since an outbreak was declared earlier this month.
Two aid workers who returned to Lombardy after a three-month trip to Uganda are now presenting with symptoms consistent with the disease, including fever, nausea, vomiting, and intestinal problems.
They have been taken to a hospital in Milan, which is equipped to deal with high-risk infectious diseases.
Lombardy’s regional welfare minister has tried to quell fears about a possible spread of the deadly disease.
He told a press conference: ‘There is still no certainty that this is Ebola. We are hopeful that they will be negative.’
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The risk to the public remains low.
The strain of Ebola causing the current spread is the Bundibugyo strain, which doesn’t have a vaccine currently. Scientists in Oxford are working on one, but it likely won’t be available for at least six months.
This weekend, at least 18 people possibly infected with Ebola fled a hospital after it was attacked multiple times by grieving families.
Attacks by residents on makeshift hospitals in Ituri province, the centre of the outbreak, have risen in the last week.
Some 18 Ebola patients escaped Mongbwalu general referral hospital on Saturday as people burnt tents set up by Médecins Sans Frontières.
Dr Richard Lokodu, medical director of the facility, told Reuters: ‘We have one confirmed case of Ebola that continues to circulate in the community and evade the response.’
A suspected patient who was in critical condition died in the second attack while trying to flee from his bed.
The attackers, Dr Lokodu said, wanted to take the bodies of the Ebola victims by force for burial.
Ebola can be contracted through contact with the bodily fluids of a dead person; the virus has spread during mourning and funeral proceedings in previous outbreaks.
Local officials say the attacks are down to a lack of awareness, with some seeing Ebola as a ‘white man’s invention’ or a cash-grab by hospitals.
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