The Austrian Federal Ministry of Health is taking precautionary measures in the Eastern municipality of Vomp in Tyrol after a British woman recently returned from Ebola-hotspot Nigeria died unexpectedly.
The body of the 48-year old, who had also recently traveled through Germany and Austria was found in her flat on Saturday night. Due to her recent travels in West Africa, and because her medical records were not available the local government took the decision to approach the death as potentially linked to Ebola.
According to The Local’s Austrian edition it is considered that Ebola is an unlikely cause of death, but the body has been placed under quarantine and staff performing tests have been equipped with medical HAZMAT suits. Although there is no known cure and it is almost always leathal, compared to other potential pandemic diseases and infections, Ebola is one of the least infectious.
Poor hygiene and lack of education means the outbreak in West Africa is the largest yet recorded. Europe has already had one confirmed Ebola victim, Spanish Missionary Priest Miguel Pajares who passed away in a Madrid hospital last week after being airlifted home. It was reported in the Sunday Telegraph that another suspected Ebola victim was arrived at a Spanish hospital in Alicante, after he flew in from Nigeria.
Although the official death toll for the disease is now well in excess of 1,000, the World Health Organisation warned last week that the death toll was significantly underestimated, as many of those dead in West Africa had not presented themselves to hospitals to be counted.
Travel between affected countries has been disrupted, with governments and carriers in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria seeking to disrupt the spread of the disease. As of yet there are no significant extra controls on people traveling from West Africa to Europe, which has fuelled fears of the virus spreading.
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