Ebola vaccine promising in first human trials: NIH

WASHINGTON - Researchers say they are one step closer to developing an Ebola vaccine, with a Phase 1 trial showing promising results, but it will be months at the earliest before it can be used in the field.

The news comes amid the worst ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever, which has killed 5,500 people so far, mostly in West Africa.

Pharmaceutical companies and health agencies scramble to fast-track experimental drugs and vaccines that could help.

In the first phase of testing, all 20 healthy adults injected with a higher or lower dose of the vaccine developed antibodies needed to fight Ebola, said the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which conducted the study.

Results were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"The unprecedented scale of the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has intensified efforts to develop safe and effective vaccines," said Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is developing the vaccine alongside GlaxoSmithKline.

The vaccines under development "may play a role in bringing this epidemic to an end and undoubtedly will be critically important in preventing future large outbreaks," he noted.

"Based on these positive results from the first human trial of this candidate vaccine, we are continuing our accelerated plan for larger trials to determine if the vaccine is efficacious in preventing Ebola infection," he added.

But the NIAID/GSK vaccine is still a long way from being ready for use in the field.

The NIAID is "in active discussions with Liberian officials and other partners about next-stage vaccine testing in West Africa" for efficacy and safety, the NIH said, but no announcement on larger-scale trials was expected before early next year.

There is no licensed treatment or vaccine against the Ebola virus, which is transmitted through bodily fluids and has been fatal in an estimated 70 percent of cases in the current outbreak.

Antibodies within four weeks

The volunteers were injected starting in September, and each showed a positive result for Ebola antibodies in blood tests within four weeks.

The 10 volunteers in the higher-dose group developed higher antibody levels, the NIH said.

In addition, two of the lower-dose group and seven of the higher-dose group developed a kind of immune cell called CD8 T cells, which are an important part of the body's response against disease.

"We know from previous studies in non-human primates that CD8 T cells played a crucial role in protecting animals" who got the vaccine and then were exposed to Ebola, said researcher Julie Ledgerwood, the trial’s principal investigator.

None of the volunteers experienced serious side effects within the study period, though two had a brief, mild fever within the 24 hours after the injection.

The vaccine uses a modified chimpanzee cold virus to deliver segments of genetic material from the Ebola virus.

The genetic material cannot spread in the body like the virus does, but can still prompt the antibody response.

The version tested at NIH contains material from two species of Ebola -- the Zaire species, responsible for the outbreak in West Africa, and another called Sudan Ebola.

"This work is encouraging and another significant contribution to efforts to tackle the Ebola crisis," said Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust.

The White House also congratulated the vaccine researchers.

"We congratulate Drs Francis Collins and Tony Fauci and their teams at the National Institutes of Health on the first published results from Phase 1 clinical trials of a promising Ebola vaccine candidate," a White House statement said, adding that President Barack Obama would visit the NIH next week.

A second version of the vaccine, aimed at blocking just Zaire Ebola, also began human testing in October, at the University of Maryland.

Another experimental vaccine that has shown promising results in primates is the Canadian VSV-EBOV, licensed by US firm NewLink Genetics. It is also in early stages of human testing.

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Critically ill Sierra Leone doctor with Ebola now in U.S.

OMAHA, Neb. - A surgeon from Sierra Leone, critically ill with Ebola, was flown to a Nebraska hospital for treatment on Saturday, and is sicker than previous patients treated in the United States, medical officials said.

Dr. Martin Salia, 44, a permanent U.S. resident, caught Ebola while working as a surgeon in a Freetown hospital, according to his family. He was stable enough to take a flight from West Africa to Omaha, but was too sick to walk off the plane, medical officials said.

He was transferred to a waiting ambulance in an isolation unit called an ISOPOD, a device used in the transportation of a potentially infectious patient, and rushed to Nebraska Medical Center to begin treatment, a hospital official said.

"Although the patient's exact condition won't be available until doctors here evaluate him after he arrives, information coming from the team caring for him in Sierra Leone indicates he is critically ill - possibly sicker than the first patients successfully treated in the United States," the hospital in said in a statement.

The patient is the third treated for Ebola in the hospital's Biocontainment Unit since the outbreak gained momentum this year in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Salia was chief medical officer at the United Methodist Church's Kissy Hospital when he was confirmed on Tuesday to have contracted Ebola.

His evacuation was at the request of his wife, a U.S. citizen who lives in Maryland and who has agreed to reimburse the U.S. government for any expense, the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

A medical crew with Phoenix Air examined the patient in Sierra Leone before leaving with him en route to the U.S. on Friday night, the Nebraska hospital said.

According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, at least 5,177 people have died in the world's worst recorded Ebola outbreak.

Most of the victims have been in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, where already weak healthcare systems have been overrun by victims of the disease. A total of 570 local health workers have been infected, with 324 dying.

Salia would be the 10th known case of Ebola in the United States. All but one case was treated successfully.

The Nebraska clinic is one of four American hospitals approved by the federal government to treat Ebola.

(Reporting by Katie Knapp Schubert and Umaru Fofana; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Writing by David Lewis and Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Stephen Powell, Franklin Paul and Andre Grenon)

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UN health worker dies of Ebola in Germany

BERLIN - A UN health worker has died of Ebola in Germany as the international community prepared to hold talks on the crisis Tuesday.

The death of the 56-year-old Sudanese man, who arrived in Germany from Liberia last week for treatment, highlighted the global struggle against what officials have termed the worst health crisis of modern times.

The United Nations was due to hold talks on the spread of the hemorrhagic virus, a day after US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for the international anti-Ebola drive to be stepped up.

The Ebola epidemic has killed more than 4,000 people this year, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to brand it "the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times".

At least two cases of contamination have been reported beyond west Africa, in the US and Europe.

The German clinic in the eastern city of Leipzig, one of three in the country to have treated Ebola patients, said the man had died during the night "despite intensive medical care and the best efforts by medical staff".

A WHO spokesman in Geneva said he was a UN volunteer.

German health officials said last Thursday he was Sudanese.

The UN announced the following day that it had quarantined 41 personnel from its Liberia mission, including 20 soldiers.

Germany has also treated two other Ebola patients infected in Sierra Leone -- a Senegalese expert who was treated in Hamburg and released on October 4, and a Ugandan doctor now being treated in Frankfurt.

'No-one taking care of us'

After measures were introduced in the US and Canada, Britain began screening for Ebola at Heathrow Airport, the first of a number of London airports and Eurostar rail hubs where travellers from the worst-hit countries of west Africa will be questioned and have their temperature tested.

Health workers in Liberia meanwhile pressed on with a strike demanding danger money to treat Ebola patients.

Obama and Ban called Tuesday for "more robust commitments and rapid delivery of assistance by the international community", the White House said in a statement.

Obama and French President Francois Hollande also issued a joint call for "stepped-up" global efforts to combat the disease.

In the face of panic that was "spreading faster than the virus", the WHO issued a stark warning over the crisis.

"I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries," said WHO chief Margaret Chan in a statement delivered on her behalf at a conference in Manila.

Ninety-five Liberian health workers have died so far in the epidemic, and their surviving colleagues want pay commensurate to the acute risk of dealing with Ebola, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids and for which there is no vaccine or widely available treatment.

In the Liberian capital Monrovia, a hospital patient quoted on local radio described scenes of desolation, with the sick deserted by striking staffers.

"We are at the Ebola Treatment Unit and no-one is taking care of us," the unnamed man said.

"Last night several patients died. Those who can walk are trying to escape by climbing over the fence."

Journalists have been banned from Liberia's Ebola clinics, making the situation there difficult to ascertain.

US must 'rethink' approach

Both cases of contamination reported so far outside Africa -- in Spain last week and now in the United States -- have involved health workers who fell ill despite stringent safety protocols surrounding Ebola.

US health authorities said the United States must "rethink" its approach to Ebola after a female nurse in Texas contracted the virus, in the first case of contamination on US soil.

Health authorities said the woman -- identified by local media as 26-year-old Nina Pham -- tested positive after caring for a Liberian Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on Wednesday.

The nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas is in isolation and said to be in a stable condition.

Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato was due to appear before parliament to face questions over the infection of the nurse, Teresa Romero, who caught the Ebola virus in a Madrid hospital after caring for two missionaries with Ebola.

She remains in a "very serious condition", according to a crisis cell set up after the case.

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Ebola victim dies in US hospital

DALLAS - The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, died on Wednesday morning at a Dallas hospital, a hospital spokesman said.

"It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am," hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said in an emailed statement.

Duncan became ill after arriving in the Texas city from Liberia on Sept. 20 to visit family, heightening concerns the world's worst Ebola outbreak on record could spread outside of the three worst-hit West African countries. About 48 people with whom Duncan had been in contact are being monitored.

Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since the outbreak began in March, nearly half of all those infected, according to the World Health Organization. While several American patients have been flown to the United States from West Africa for treatment, Duncan was the first person to start showing symptoms of the disease on U.S. soil.

A Spanish nurse who treated a priest who worked in the region is also infected.

Duncan was able to fly to the United States from Liberia's capital Monrovia, which is at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, because he did not have a fever when screened at the airport and filled out a questionnaire saying he had not been in contact with anyone infected with Ebola.

Liberian officials have since said that he lied on the questionnaire and had been in contact with a pregnant woman who later died of the disease. Ebola can take as long as three weeks before its victims show symptoms, at which point the disease becomes contagious. Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

Duncan began feeling ill shortly after his arrival in Texas. He went to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Sept. 25, but was initially sent home with antibiotics. His condition worsened, he returned Sept. 28 by ambulance and was diagnosed with the disease.

"The past week has been an enormous test of our health system, but for one family it has been far more personal. Today they lost a dear member of their family. They have our sincere condolences, and we are keeping them in our thoughts," David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement.

Officials have said as many as 48 people may have been exposed to the disease by Duncan, and that the 10 people at highest risk are cooperating with public health authorities by staying in quarantine voluntarily. The other 38 people who may have been exposed are being checked routinely for fever.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said he was confident the disease would not spread widely within the United States. U.S. officials are also expanding their response in West Africa.

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Texas Ebola patient gets experimental drug

WASHINGTON - A Liberian man diagnosed with Ebola in Texas was given an experimental drug for the first time, officials said Monday as the White House mulled tougher airport screening at home and abroad.

Thomas Eric Duncan was given the investigational medication, brincidofovir, on Saturday, the day his condition worsened from serious to critical, said Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

The medication is made by the North Carolina-based pharmaceutical company Chimerix, and until now had never been tried in humans with Ebola, the company said.

However, it has been tested in about 1,000 people against adenovirus and cytomegalovirus.

The drug "works by keeping viruses from creating additional copies of themselves," Chimerix said.

Duncan is the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, and he is believed to have become infected while in Liberia.

West Africa is currently battling the largest outbreak of Ebola in history, with more than 3,400 dead from the hemorrhagic virus since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama was briefed by senior health and security advisors about the situation in Texas and US preparedness against Ebola.

Obama said the chances of a US Ebola outbreak were "extraordinarily low" but vowed to press world leaders to step up the global fight against the deadly epidemic in West Africa.

"We have not seen other countries step up as aggressively as they need to," Obama said.

"I'm going to be putting a lot of pressure on my fellow heads of state and government around the world to make sure that they are doing everything that they can to join us in this effort."

He said the United States is considering tougher airport screening to ward against the spread of cases by airline travelers.

"We're also going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screening both at the source and here in the United States," Obama told reporters.

In Nebraska, a US photojournalist who tested positive for Ebola in Liberia arrived at a hospital and was able to walk off the airplane that carried him.

"We are really happy that his symptoms are not extreme yet," Ashoka Mukpo's mother, Diana, told reporters, adding that he was feverish and nauseous.

He is being treated at the Nebraska Medical Center, the same facility that treated American missionary doctor Rick Sacra last month.

Sacra also came down with Ebola in Liberia and was treated with the Canadian firm Tekmira's Ebola drug, TKM-Ebola, as well as serum from another doctor, Kent Brantly, who had Ebola and recovered.

Brantly was treated with a drug called ZMapp, which is hard to make, and there are no doses left.

There is no market-approved drug for treating Ebola yet, and no vaccine to prevent it.

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Ebola hits 5th W. African state as Senegal confirms 1st case

DAKAR - The Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 1,500 people across West Africa spread to a fifth country in the region on Friday with the first confirmed case of the deadly virus in Senegal.

The case marks the first time a new country has been hit by the outbreak since July and comes a day after the World Health Organization warned the number of infections was increasing rapidly.

Scientists meanwhile said the first human trials of a potential vaccine would start next week using a product made by pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline and the US government.

On Friday, scientists writing in the journal Nature said 18 lab monkeys given high doses of the Ebola virus fully recovered after being given the prototype drug ZMapp, which reversed bleeding in the animals.

ZMapp has been given to a handful of frontline health workers who have contracted Ebola, two of whom have recovered, and two of whom have died. Three others are still receiving the treatment.

Senegal's health ministry said the country's first Ebola patient was a young Guinean man who was immediately quarantined at a Dakar hospital, where he was in a "satisfactory condition".

The man is believed to have been infected in Guinea's capital Conakry, and may have travelled to Senegal before Dakar closed its land border with Guinea on August 21.

Authorities are now scrabbling to piece together where he went and who he encountered, in a bid to halt the spread of the deadly virus.

New figures released by the WHO on Thursday revealed the massive scale of the crisis, which it said indicated a "rapid increase still in the intensity of transmission" that could cost at least $490 million (370 million euros) to tackle.

In a sign that affected countries are struggling to stop its spread, the UN agency said the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the epidemic is brought under control.

- Under surveillance -

Never before has there been an Ebola outbreak so large, nor has the virus -- which was first detected in 1976 -- ever infected people in West Africa until now.

As of August 26, 1,552 people had been confirmed dead from Ebola in four countries -- Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

Liberia was the worst affected with 694 deaths; 422 people have died in Sierra Leone; and 430 in Guinea, where the virus emerged at the start of the year. Nigeria has now recorded six deaths.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has also confirmed two cases of Ebola, but officials there insist it is unconnected to the current outbreak in West Africa.

Sierra Leone President Ernest Koroma on Friday sacked health minister Miatta Kargbo.

A presidential statement read on state television said the decision was made "in order to create a conducive environment for more efficient and effective handling of the Ebola outbreak."

Nigeria's latest death -- in the southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt -- was the first outside its biggest city, Lagos, and dashed hopes that the country had successfully contained the virus.

The victim, a doctor named Ikyke Samuel Enuemo, is believed to have caught the virus from a patient he treated who travelled to the city after coming into contact with an infected Liberian-American man.

Some 160 people are now under surveillance in Port Harcourt following the doctor's death, the local government said on Friday.

Meanwhile a curfew was imposed in N'Zerekore, Guinea's second-largest city, a day after 20 people were injured during a protest by market stall holders against a team of health workers sent, without notice, to spray their market with disinfectant.

- A shield around the region -

In a bid to stop the spread of the virus, many African governments have sought to ringfence Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

But member states of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS complained Thursday that some of the security measures taken by other countries, including travel bans, had unfairly hit the region.

A number of airlines, including Air France and British Airways, have suspended their services to Freetown and Monrovia, the capitals of Sierra Leone and Liberia respectively.

Bruce Aylward, the WHO's head of emergency programmes, said it was "absolutely vital" that airlines resume flights because bans were hindering the emergency response.

The outbreak has also caused sporting chaos, with Sierra Leone having to field all players for the qualifying games for the African Cup of Nations from outside the country over a growing quarantine.

Morocco, which will host the tournament next year, said on Friday it was launching a national commission tasked with drawing up a health plan to deal with the risk from Ebola.

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Ebola-hit Liberia fires absentee ministers

MONROVIA - Liberia's leader has sacked ministers and senior government officials who defied an order to return to the west African nation to lead the fight against the deadly Ebola outbreak, her office said on Tuesday.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had told overseas ministers to return within a week as part of a state-of-emergency announcement on August 6, warning that extraordinary measures were needed "for the very survival of our state".

Sirleaf "directed that all officials occupying ministerial level positions or equivalent -- senior and junior -- managing directors, deputy/assistant directors or equivalent, commissioners et cetera who violated the orders are hereby relieved of their positions," her office said in a statement.

It did not say how many ministers were affected or which ones had been fired.

But a government insider clarified that only deputy ministers and senior officials were involved in the dismissal, and not cabinet-level ministers.

United Nations officials have pledged to step up efforts against the lethal tropical virus, which has infected more than 2,600 and killed 1,427 since the start of the year.

The World Health Organization said on Monday more than 120 health workers across west Africa have died during the "unprecedented" outbreak, and more than 240 had been infected.

In Sierra Leone, the WHO has temporarily pulled back its health workers from the Kailahun post after one of them was infected and an investigation is under way to prevent further infections before sending a team back there.

"This was the responsible thing to do. The field team has been through a traumatic time through this incident," said Dr Daniel Kertesz, WHO representative in Sierra Leone, in a statement.

Also Tuesday the African Development Bank warned the epidemic could cut economic output in the three worst-hit countries, as well as neighbouring Ivory Coast, by between one and 1.5 percent of gross economic product.

"If people don't start worrying about agriculture, there is going to be a food crisis. That will be the first direct impact on farmers in this region," said president Donald Kaberuka.

Second Ebola front
Meanwhile a second front has opened up in Africa's struggle with Ebola, after the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Tuesday it was preparing for a "battle of at least three months" after 13 people died after contracting the virus in the remote northeast.

Congolese authorities said the outbreak concerned Zaire Ebola, the species that is ravaging west Africa, but said the two outbreaks were not linked.

The United Nations' Ebola envoy David Nabarro, in Guinea's capital Conakry on Tuesday on the third leg of a tour of the region, has described the fight against the epidemic as a "war" which could take six more months.

"I understand that the situation is more or less stable in Guinea," he said.

"But with the surge of new outbreaks of the epidemic in recent weeks, there is an urgent need to consider a regional humanitarian rapid large-scale operation to stop the epidemic in a maximum period of six months."

Guinea, where the disease was first discovered, has reported 406 deaths, Sierra Leone 392 and Nigeria five, the WHO said on Friday.

- Deaths likely underestimated -

Liberia has suffered the worst effects of the outbreak, registering 624 deaths.

Sirleaf's office said she met a delegation of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including its global head Tom Frieden, on Monday to discuss combatting the epidemic.

Frieden was quoted as saying there was an urgent need for more treatment facilities.

The WHO has echoed Nabarro's warning that it could take several months to bring the epidemic under control.

The agency estimates its count of the infected and dead is likely far too low, due in part to community resistance to outside medical staff and a lack of access to infected areas.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, the health ministry said Tuesday that two more people had been released from isolation after recovering from Ebola, leaving only one living patient with the disease in the country.

Elsewhere in the region, the Ivory Coast has closed its borders with Guinea and Liberia, just days after Senegal did the same with Guinea, while South Africa has banned entry for non-citizens arriving from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Ivorian Health Minister Raymonde Goudou Coffie told a press conference in Abidjan that it was "uncanny' that the country has so far no reported cases of Ebola which is ravaging neighbouring Guinea and Liberia.

Peter Piot, the Belgian scientist who co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976, said on Tuesday a "perfect storm" in west Africa had given the disease a chance to spread unchecked.

"We have never seen an (Ebola) epidemic on this scale," Piot was quoted by the French daily Liberation as saying.

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Asia on alert with thermal cameras, doctors as Ebola declared global risk

BANGKOK - Asian nations are using thermal imaging cameras and posting doctors at airports to screen out sick travellers as health authorities scramble to avert any outbreak of the Ebola virus that has killed almost 1,000 people in West Africa.

The four nations of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone are struggling to combat the world's worst outbreak of Ebola, which has a fatality rate of up to 90 percent, with no known vaccine or cure.

The World Health Organisation declared the West Africa epidemic an "extraordinary event" and an international public health emergency on Friday.

There have been no confirmed cases of the virus in Asia, but health authorities who have battled deadly viruses, such as bird flu and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in recent years, were dusting off the drills used for those outbreaks.

Their measures included infra-red thermal imaging cameras to screen air passengers with fevers and public awareness campaigns. Most countries have told citizens to consider postponing travel to affected areas.

Asia's efforts to screen visitors were adequate, said Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesman based in Geneva.

"As long as a person is not visibly sick we think it's fine for them to be in public," he told Reuters by telephone. "We consider the risk for international spread quite low. The measures countries in Asia have taken are appropriate."

Health officials in Thailand, which received a record 26.5 million tourists last year, are monitoring 21 visitors from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The officials said they had no plans to quarantine the visitors.

"They are free to move but we are checking in on them frequently," said Opart Karnkawinpong, a disease control official at Thailand's Ministry of Public Health.

"We have surveillance cameras in place at major entry points and doctors at international airports to supplement existing teams."

MEASURES IN PLACE

The Ebola virus is only transmitted through contact with the body fluids of someone with symptoms, which initially include muscle pains and joint aches, then worsen to vomiting, diarrhoea and internal and external bleeding in the final stages.

In China, there were no reports of Ebola cases but hospitals have been told to report any suspected cases.

India, which has nearly 45,000 citizens living and working in the four affected countries, said it would screen travellers passing through, or starting journeys there, when they returned.

"The surveillance system would be geared up to track these travellers for four weeks and detect them early, in case they develop symptoms," Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told parliament on Wednesday.

Japan is ready to send suspected Ebola victims to special isolation hospitals, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.

In Australia, authorities said they had not taken extra steps but airports were on alert for sick travellers, saying the risk of the disease reaching the country was "very low".

Officials in Singapore said the city state, praised for its tough measures against the SARS outbreak that claimed 33 lives in 2003, also faced only a low threat from the Ebola virus.

"Measures are already in place to carry out contact tracing and quarantine all close contacts if there is a case," the health ministry said.

In Thailand, health official Opart said the 21 travellers would stay under observation for the entire incubation period, which can last up to 21 days.

"Even though Ebola is only a small risk to Thailand we are not taking any chances," he said.

(Additional reporting by Thuy Ong in SYDNEY, Rachel Armstrong in SINGAPORE, Aung Hla Tun in YANGON, Kaori Kaneko in TOKYO and Nita Bhalla of the Thomson Reuters Foundation in NEW DELHI; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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Saudi suspects case of Ebola infection

RIYADH - Doctors in Saudi Arabia are testing a patient suspected of having contracted Ebola during a trip to West Africa, hit by an epidemic of the virus, the health ministry said Tuesday.

The Saudi man was admitted to hospital in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after showing symptoms of haemorrhagic fever upon his return from Sierra Leone.

The patient, in his 40s, is in critical condition and has symptoms "similar to that of Ebola infection."

Ebola-like symptoms include fever, vomiting, severe headaches and muscular pain and, in the final stages, profuse bleeding.

The UN World Health Organisation said Monday that at least 887 people have died from Ebola since the beginning of the year, after the virus spread across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In April, Saudi Arabia announced a ban on visas for Muslims in the three West African nations wishing to perform the pilgrimage to the Muslim holy sites there.

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