A person who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus was checked into Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center, health officials said Tuesday.
Hospital officials alerted the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services, and department officials said they are in touch with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC will test a blood sample drawn at the hospital to detect whether the Ebola virus is present. Results are expected in a few days, according to county officials.
“In order to protect our patients, staff and physicians, even though infection with the virus is unconfirmed, we are taking the actions recommended by the CDC as a precaution, just as we do for other patients with a suspected infectious disease,” said Dr. Stephen Parodi, an infectious disease specialist at Kaiser Permanente North California.
“This includes isolation of the patient in a specially equipped negative pressure room and the use of personal protective equipment by trained staff, coordinated with infectious disease specialists,” he said.
Kaiser did not comment on when the patient – it’s unknown if they are male or female – was admitted to the hospital or where if they might have traveled recently to West Africa, where an Ebola outbreak has killed more than 1,100 people.
Meanwhile, a New Mexico woman is being tested for the Ebola virus in Albuquerque after recently returning from a teaching trip in Sierra Leone and falling ill. The unidentified patient is currently in isolation and will remain that way until the results of the blood tests come back, which is expected to be by the end of the week.
As of this week there are no known Ebola cases in the U.S. other than two U.S. health workers who were evacuated to Emory University hospital in Atlanta from Liberia earlier this month.
Kent Brantly, 33, a Texas doctor, told Reuters on Friday that he was “recovering in every way” and hoped to be released soon. Nancy Writebol, a 59-year-old missionary from Charlotte, N.C., also remains hospitalized at Emory. Her son said that she, too, was getting better.
Both patients were treated with ZMapp, an experimental drug being developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical for use with people infected with Ebola virus.
Also earlier this month, a man who had traveled to West Africa arrived at the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City with a high fever and stomach ache. The hospital tested him for Ebola, but the city’s health department said he was “unlikely” to have the virus.
The current outbreak — which has affected a wide region of West Africa including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Nigeria — is the largest on record, prompting the World Health Organization to declare an ‘international public health emergency‘ earlier this month. While official estimates put the death toll at more than 1,100, the WHO warns that these numbers “vastly underestimate” the true scale of the outbreak. Officials say it will take at least 6 month to bring the outbreak under control.