Ebola Scare In Southeast Asia As Vietnam And Myanmar Test Suspected Patients

Two Nigerians, who arrived in Vietnam late on Tuesday, and a 22-year-old Burmese national, who landed in Myanmar after a trip to Guinea and Liberia -- two of the worst-hit countries in the current Ebola outbreak -- are being tested for symptoms of the viral disease, Agence France-Presse, or AFP, reported Wednesday.

The Nigerians were sent to the Tropical Diseases Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, where they are being kept in isolation, the report said, citing Vietnamese health ministry officials. The Burmese national was taken to a hospital in Yangon in Myanmar.

“Samples were sent to a WHO (World Health Organization) recognized laboratory to check whether or not Ebola was present,” an official at the Myanmar Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reportedly said, adding that four people who accompanied the man to the hospital were also being kept under observation.

More than 1,200 people have died so far in the worst-ever Ebola outbreak on record.