A South Korean healthcare worker feared to have contracted Ebola while based in Sierra Leone tested negative in a preliminary test for the deadly virus at a hospital in Germany, medical officials there said Sunday.
The worker, whose identity has been withheld, is in stable condition and is not showing any symptoms of the virus, officials at Charite University Medicine Berlin said. But the patient requires further monitoring since test results only become conclusive six to 10 days after exposure to the virus, they said.
The worker is one of a 10-member South Korean medical team dispatched to an Ebola clinic operated by Britain in Goderich, near Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown. The worker was flown to Berlin on Saturday in a U.S. air ambulance after the index finger came into contact with a needle through a partly ripped glove while collecting blood from an Ebola patient on Dec. 30. The worker sustained no external injuries, but will be monitored for three weeks, officials at the Berlin hospital said.
An initial blood test came back negative for Ebola, they said.
South Korea has agreements with European countries and the United States to evacuate its health care workers from West Africa to Europe for treatment if any of them contract the virus.
Seoul’s foreign ministry said it plans to closely cooperate with the German government and the hospital to follow the medical condition of the worker.
South Korea will send 20 other medical workers in the coming months to the West African country as initially planned, it said.
South Korea has joined global efforts to fight Ebola by sending medical workers and offering a combined US$12.6 million in assistance. The virus is estimated to have killed more than 7,900 people since December 2013, according to the World Health Organization. (Yonhap)
