Workers offload a shipment of more than 15 tons of supplies donated by UNICEF as part of the response to the Ebola virus outbreak at Bunia National Airport in Bunia, Congo on Tuesday.Moses Sawasawa/The Associated Press
One person in Ontario was being tested for Ebola, the province’s health ministry said on Wednesday, as a deadly outbreak of a rare type of the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda had officials around the globe on alert, including in Canada where Global Affairs said consular services were ready to help Canadians in the region who need it.
Ontario’s Ministry of Health spokesperson Jackson Jacobs said in an e-mail the patient was being tested for a range of infectious diseases, including the Ebola virus, “out of an abundance of caution,” given the person’s recent travel history.
Currently there’s an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola, called Bundibugyo, in the Congo and neighbouring Uganda.
The World Health Organization said there are almost 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths, though officials believe the scale of the spread is much larger.
It was not immediately clear which type of Ebola the patient in Ontario was being tested for, or where in the region they travelled to.
The Public Health Agency of Canada said there has never been a case of Ebola virus in Canada.
No immediate plans for Ebola travel ban, Ottawa says, as deaths rise in eastern Congo
Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and internal and external bleeding in later stages of the illness.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the risk of the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak is low on a global scale, but high at national and regional levels in Africa.
“We expect those numbers to keep increasing, given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the outbreak was detected,” he said, speaking of the spread of the virus that went undetected for weeks after the first known death, as a result of testing for a more common Ebola virus.
Global Affairs Canada said earlier on Wednesday that it was not aware of any Canadians affected by the Bundibugyo outbreak.
Thida Ith, a spokesperson for the federal agency, said there are thousands of registered Canadians in both DRC and Uganda, but that those numbers may not be up-to-date, and don’t reflect a desire to leave.
There are 2,300 Canadians registered as being in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Global Affairs’ voluntary registration for Canadians abroad, and 1,300 are registered in Uganda.
“Consular officials are standing ready to provide assistance to those who are requesting it,” said Anita Anand, the minister of foreign affairs, during a call with reporters from Estonia.
The federal government has advised Canadians not to travel to the eastern Ituri and North Kivu provinces stricken by Bundibugyo virus, a species of Ebola that has no vaccines or treatments.
“We increased this travel advisory on Friday. This is a situation we are monitoring very closely,” Anand said. That includes watching to see what border measures are imposed by allies, she said.
The updated notice states that if a Canadian decides to travel to the affected area despite the advisory, they should regularly reassess the situation to determine if their “presence in the area is warranted.”
At this point, Anand said, Canada has not received official requests for assistance from the DRC.