Ebola In Russia? 2 African Students Hospitalized For Ebola Tests After Showing Symptoms

Two African students were hospitalized in the Russian town of Oryol after they were suspected of showing Ebola-like symptoms, RT News, a local news outlet, reported Thursday. The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has claimed the lives of nearly 4,500 people, mostly in West Africa, and threatens to spread to other parts of the world.

The students from Guinea-Bissau, a country in West Africa, were reportedly placed in the isolation unit of the Botkin City Hospital of Oryol, about 217 miles southwest of Moscow, following a blood test. The two students reportedly arrived at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport on Wednesday and traveled to Oryol by bus. Hospital authorities said that the students had complained of high fever after they arrived from Africa.

The two patients, who are students at Oryol State University, have been identified as Monteyro Bolde Iyury, 20, and Santoush Monteyro Ayuk Lidish, 23, RT News reported.

The people who came in contact with the two patients were reportedly detained at a special block in the university. However, according to reports, the students are no longer displaying symptoms of the virus that has spread in parts of Western Africa with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone being the worst-hit countries.

"Even if there is one case of the Ebola virus entering Russia, as has happened in the US and in Spain, the sanitary epidemiological service, which has a considerable amount of experience fighting infectious diseases, will help remove the possibility of it spreading," Oleg Salagai, the health ministry's press secretary, said a week ago, according to RT News.

Meanwhile, French health officials said Thursday that passengers arriving from Guinea would be screened at a Paris airport beginning Saturday, France 24, a local news outlet, reported. France is the latest to join the list of countries -- including the United States, Britain and Canada -- to screen passengers amid warnings by the United Nations about Ebola's spread.

As part of the Ebola screening program, health officials will start taking temperatures of passengers from the three West African countries at airports in Washington, Chicago, Atlanta and Newark, New Jersey, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

Earlier this week, it was announced that London's Heathrow Airport will screen passengers travelling from countries determined to be at risk from the Ebola virus.