Brazilian tests negative for Ebola virus a second time

Brazil’s Health Ministry said Saturday that a man who began experiencing Ebolalike symptoms after returning from a trip to the West African nation of Guinea had tested negative a second time for that severe and often fatal disease.

The 46yearold patient, whose identity was not revealed, is no longer under quarantine and will soon leave the Rio de Janeirobased Evandro Chagas National Institute of Infectious Diseases, where he was admitted on Wednesday.

He will return to Belo Horizonte, a city in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais where he first sought medical care, and be treated there for malaria.

The patient received medical attention for the first time on Sunday, two days after returning from Guinea, and was immediately quarantined due to symptoms including high fever, headaches and muscle pain.

On Thursday, health authorities said the man tested negative in an initial exam but that they would continue to monitor 95 people he had come into contact with after returning to Brazil.

Authorities will inform the World Health Organization about the latest test result, in keeping with that U.N. agency’s International Health Regulations, the ministry said in a statement.

In an earlier suspected Ebola case in Brazil last year, a Guinean man who arrived in the South American country with a high fever also tested negative for the disease.