MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil testing patient suspected of Ebola infection; another 64 in quarantine

“All of the steps called for by protocol were effectively and very successfully carried out,” said Brazilian Health minister

Brazilian Health Minister Arthur Chioro said on Friday the results of tests on a patient suspected of Ebola infection would take 24 hours. At a press conference in Brasilia, the minister assured the situation was under control and that proper precautions had been taken to isolate the patient.

“All of the steps called for by protocol were effectively and very successfully carried out,” Chioro said, according to Brazil's leading G1 news website.

“If we have the results of the tests earlier, they will immediately be made public. The protocol states the results have to be confirmed by two laboratories. Even if the outcome is negative, a second sample will be gotten in 48 hours for analysis, ” he explained.

If he turns out to have Ebola which is ravaging West Africa, it would be the first known case in Latin America. The patient, Souleymane Bah, 47, is from Guinea, one of four West African countries affected by an Ebola outbreak. He arrived in Brazil On Sept. 19.

Bah told medical personnel in the city of Cascavel, state of Santa Catarina, Thursday that he had had a fever, with no other symptoms of the virus, such as bleeding and vomiting.

He was then transferred to the National Evandro Chagas Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rio de Janeiro.

The first medical center where he was treated was closed to undergo a process of sterilization Friday before reopening, said a regional health official.

The Health Ministry has identified 64 people who had contact with the patient to monitor their conditions over the next 21 days, the period in which symptoms would appear in an infected person. But authorities said the patients had “low risk” of having contracted Ebola.

Bah flew from the Guinean capital Conakry to Argentina, with a layover in Morocco, then travelled overland to Brazil, according to television network Globo News, which said he was seeking refugee status.

This is the first time the alert has reached the level of the national health ministry, according to newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been the countries hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak that erupted at the beginning of the year, killing nearly 4,000 people so far -- roughly half of those infected.

The disease causes fever, diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases internal and external bleeding. It is spread by contact and the exchange of bodily fluids