After brief scare, Pentagon says ill tourist did not have Ebola

A woman at the Pentagon who was rushed to a Virginia hospital after police found her vomiting in the parking lot Friday does not have the Ebola virus, local health officials said.

After reviewing her travel history and questioning the woman, who has not been identified, “medical authorities are confident that she does not have Ebola,” according to a joint statement by public health agencies in Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia.

The incident prompted a flurry of moves by police and health authorities worried that the woman might have been infected with the virus.

She was part of a group heading by bus to the Marine Barracks in Washington on Friday morning when she fell ill, according to a Pentagon statement.

“The woman was briefly on board a DoD-contracted bus bound for the Marine Barracks,” the statement said. “The woman did not remain on the bus and never left the Pentagon.”

She “was ill and vomiting” and told Pentagon police “that she had recently visited Africa,” according to the Pentagon.

The police cordoned off a large section of the parking lot and called in local paramedics, who responded in hazardous-materials gear.

She was put in isolation at Inova Fairfax Hospital, the statement by local authorities said.

By late Friday, Pentagon authorities had reopened the parking lot and an entrance to a nearby building.

She was apparently part of a group attending a ceremony to install a new Marine commandant.

The bus was stopped before reaching the Marine Barracks, and passengers were screened by emergency personnel from the District of Columbia Department of Health, the statement said.

“The bus and its passengers were cleared,” the statement said. Seventeen police and county emergency personnel were also cleared.

Hundreds of people have been checked for Ebola, whose symptoms typically include fever and vomiting, at U.S. hospitals in recent weeks. So far, one man who had recently arrived from Liberia has died of the virus, and two nurses who treated him have been infected.

Twitter: @davidcloudLAT