Boston-area clinic evacuated amid Ebola nervousness

A medical clinic in a Boston suburb was evacuated Sunday afternoon amid fears about a possible Ebola case, officials confirmed.

It was unclear whether the patient actually had Ebola. Nationwide, there have been numerous false alarms regarding the deadly virus in recent weeks.

William Cash of the Braintree Fire Department told the Los Angeles Times that the Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates clinic in Braintree, Mass., has been evacuated. He said that Ebola protocol was being followed and that the patient was taken away by an ambulance service, although he would not specify the destination.

Cash did not say what symptoms the patient had or whether he or she had been in West Africa.

A phone operator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston confirmed that afternoon that a patient with possible Ebola symptoms was on the way in, but the operator said he could not provide any details, including whether the patient was the person who had gone to the Braintree clinic.

Late Sunday, Beth Israel Deaconess said in a statement that it had accepted a patient who had reported traveling from Liberia. The patient is being kept in isolation, but his or her likelihood of having contracted Ebola “is extremely low,” the statement said.

A hospital spokeswoman told The Times she could not say whether that patient first went to the Braintree clinic.

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