Brazil Rules Out Ebola in Two Travelers After Tests

Overview

• Health teams isolated two symptomatic travelers over the weekend after they arrived from countries with active Ebola outbreaks and treated both cases under national biosafety protocols.
• Instituto Adolfo Lutz and Fiocruz used molecular methods including qPCR and sequencing and reported on June 1 that samples from both patients showed no detectable Ebola virus genetic material.
• The São Paulo case involves a 37-year-old who had recently been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and was confirmed to have meningococcal meningitis while remaining hospitalized and intubated.
• The Rio patient, a traveler who recently came from Uganda, was diagnosed with malaria and remains in isolation pending routine follow-up, with contacts in both cities being traced and monitored.
• Authorities say the risk of Ebola introduction to Brazil and South America stays very low because the virus spreads only through direct contact with bodily fluids, and officials will maintain heightened surveillance at reference centers.