Officials with the Alberta Health Services say that it is 'highly unlikely' that a female patient who was admitted in the emergency room at a Calgary hospital has Ebola.
Reports say that the patient originally arrived at the Peter Lougheed Centre late Wednesday night, but was soon moved to the South Health Campus.
Dr. Richard Musto, the Medical Officer of Health, Calgary Zone, says that it was the patient's symptoms and recent travel history that alerted physicians to the possibility of an Ebola infection.
Musto says the woman came from one of the three countries currenting fighting an outbreak of the disease.
"We are managing a patient with an unknown illness at South Health Campus right now. Due to this individual's travel and symptom history, we are testing this individual for several illnesses including Ebola virus disease," Musto said at a conference on Thursday.
He says that the risk of this patient actually having Ebola is 'very low' and they had no known exposure to the disease prior to travel to Canada.
"We will continue to manage the patient in case they do have Ebola even though we believe it is highly unlikely that they do."
Musto says that the test results for Ebola, sent to the provincial lab in Edmonton, will take a few days to come back.
He says there are any number of common gastrointestinal viruses the patient may have caught overseas and there are many things they could have caught while in Calgary too.
Meanwhile, health officials will be making contact with another who may have come in contact with the patient while she was at the hospital.
The patient will be held for a few days and then followed at home for 21 days, even if the tests for Ebola come back negative.
"We will continue to monitor her temperature and symptoms."
He says that the woman poses no risk to the public.
Musto says that there was no affect on the other emergency departments in Calgary and there was just a brief time during which EMS service was diverted to other hospitals while staff cleaned the areas that the patient may have come in contact with.
He is not sure if any ambulances actually needed to be diverted.
"It would be unfortunate and irresponsible to think that our facilities are anything but safe. Our facilities are safe, open, and they are providing high quality care."
Back in October, Alberta health officials say that the risk of Ebola in the province is low, but they do have a plan in case the disease does appear here.
"We are prepared to manage any potential case of Ebola," Musto said. "This case is an example of our preparedness, in fact."
He says that they've conducted hundreds of one-on-one training sessions with health professionals in Calgary since October alone. Hundreds more have been conducted province-wide.
They say 1,700 people have participated in Ebola education and training sessions and an information video has been developed for health care providers.
"There certainly was a heightened level of anxiety as the case in Dallas was publicized," Musto said. "We've done a lot of preparation. Our collective sense is people are feeling prepared, we're confident. This is what we do, we do it well."
According to reports, 15,935 people have been sickened with Ebola in West Africa and of those, 5,689 have died.
Officials say there have been 600 new cases of the disease in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in just the past week.
Alberta health officials say they will provide updates on the situation as information comes available.
(With files from the Associated Press)
