Tests rule out Ebola in L.A. patient, officials say
An Ebola scare on Saturday turned out to be a false alarm, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said.
A patient who recently visited Sierra Leone developed Ebola-like symptoms, said Bernard Tolliver, a spokesman for the department. A spokeswoman for Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center confirmed the patient was taken there on Friday.
The patient, who did not work in healthcare and had no known exposure to anyone with the virus while in Sierra Leone, was considered at low risk for the disease, Tolliver said.
Still, local officials alerted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. “They reached out last night and we’ve been monitoring the situation throughout the night up until now,” said CDC spokesman Jason McDonald.
The patient was isolated and quarantined by hospital staff during testing. After the completion of a medical evaluation, Tolliver said, “it was determined that this person does not have Ebola, but rather had a different medical condition which was the cause of the symptoms.”
Medical officials declined to provide more information about the patient’s condition.
There have been no confirmed cases of Ebola so far in Southern California.
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