HARARE’s Wilkins Infectious Disease Hospital remains closed to the public as health officials await specimen results for a suspected Ebola patient detained at the institution. FELUNA NLEYA STAFF REPORTER The unidentified patient, who also tested positive to malaria, has been detained at the isolation hospital since last week after her blood specimen was sent to South Africa for screening.
“We will open as soon as the patient is discharged,” city health director Prosper Chonzi said yesterday.
“We are waiting for the results so that we satisfy ourselves, although all pointers show that it is not Ebola.
“We cannot open it before the results come for confidence building, but once the results come the patient gets discharged and we open the hospital.”
Health and Child Care minister David Parirenyatwa has since quelled speculative reports of an Ebola outbreak in the country.
“We are only doing this to see how we would handle an Ebola case. To us it’s still a scare, the patient tested positive to malaria so she has malaria,” Parirenyatwa said.
Local health officials have been on high alert for Ebola since the contagious disease broke out in West Africa, where it has claimed over 3 000 lives over the past two months.
