Ebola Epidemic: Man Hospitalized With Suspected Ebola In Sweden

A man has reportedly been placed in quarantine in Stockholm after he developed a high fever Sunday evening. The man had recently travelled to an Ebola-hit African country, according to local media reports.

"Yes, we have a suspected [Ebola] case, but it's not confirmed," a Stockholm County Council spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal.

The unidentified man developed a high fever and stomach pains before seeking medical care, the Journal reported, citing local media reports. He was transferred from a clinic to an isolation unit at the Karolinska University Hospital after he reportedly told medical staff that he had recently travelled to a West African country, which has seen the largest outbreak of the Ebola virus yet. The report, however, did not mention the country that the man had returned from.

"The risk that this is an Ebola case is minimal, but we are handling this with extreme care," Ake Ortqvist, a communicable disease specialist, told Aftonbladet, a local newspaper, according to the Journal, and added that the probability of an Ebola outbreak in Sweden is very low.

Sweden’s public health agency will look for signs of Ebola in blood samples taken from the patient and the blood-test results are expected by Monday evening.

The latest outbreak of Ebola has claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people, mostly in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. More than 3,000 people have been infected by the Ebola virus so far, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

In recent weeks, most of the suspected Ebola cases in Europe have turned out to be false alarms after examination by medical authorities. A few weeks ago, a priest who was airlifted from Liberia to Spain for treatment died from the deadly tropical disease shortly after arriving in a hospital in Spain.