BELGRADE, October 10 (RIA Novosti) - The Macedonian Health Ministry does not believe that the recently deceased British patient was the first person to die of the highly lethal Ebola virus in the country.
The Briton, who came to Skopje from the United Kingdom on October 2, displayed Ebola-like symptoms, but chances are that it was a different kind of disease that killed him, Macedonian Health Ministry spokeswoman Jovanka Kostovska said as cited by the local MRT channel.
The spokeswoman said that the Briton had not traveled to any of the west African countries affected by the Ebola outbreak.
The British man was on a business trip to Macedonia and staying at a hotel in Skopje when he displayed symptoms consistent with the deadly Ebola virus disease – high fever, internal bleeding and vomiting – and was admitted to a hospital where he died two hours later.
A laboratory in Germany is currently studying the dead patient's samples, with the results expected to in 48 hours.
It was the severity of the man's condition and his sudden death that mainly spoke in favor of the Ebola diagnosis. The mortality rate of the outbreak is at more than 50 percent.
The current Ebola epidemic stems from West Africa. It broke out in Guinea and later spread across Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal.
