10.08 Quarantined German Patient Not Infected with Ebola - Reports

BERLIN, August 10 (RIA Novosti) - Medical tests did not confirm Ebola virus in a German patient, who was isolated earlier with symptoms of the deadly virus, Bild newspaper wrote Sunday citing a representative of the clinic treating the patient.

"The man is no longer in quarantine since 7:10 a.m. [5:10 GMT]," the paper quoted the representative of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf as saying.

A man who had recently arrived from Sierra Leone, where the virus has already claimed 12 lives, sought medical help on Saturday due to high fever and nausea. He was admitted to the emergency room of a Hamburg hospital and isolated on suspicion of having being infected with Ebola, the symptoms of which resemble those of flu, and include fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and bleeding.

The man was later transferred to the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf accompanied by a convoy of six police cars.

At the end of last month, Hamburg’s Bernhard-Nocht-Institute agreed to accept Ebola patients for treatment as requested from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria have declared the state of emergency due to the worst Ebola outbreak in history and the first to occur in West Africa. The virus has killed 961 people as of August 6, with 1,779 infected, according to the World Health Organization.

WHO announced the virus outbreak an emergency situation of international importance on Friday.

There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for the Ebola virus, which has a case fatality rate of up to 90 percent. Medical workers use rehydration fluid and antibiotics to fight infections. Some groups have called for new drugs to be rolled out in Africa after two US aid workers infected with the virus responded positively to an experimental treatment known as Zmapp.