Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C., roped off part of its emergency department and isolated a patient on Wednesday, leading rumors to circulate that the patient may have been suffering from Ebola, according to a News Observer report.
The patient in question had recently traveled in Africa, where the Ebola outbreak is severe. The president of Sierra Leone has declared the outbreak a public health emergency, according to a Time report.
While it is unlikely that Ebola will spread to the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still issued Level 2 alerts for citizens traveling to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Once the CMC medical staff realized that the patient had recently traveled to Africa, they placed the patient in isolation for about seven hours and closed off a corridor in the emergency department until they concluded that the patient was not suffering from Ebola. The patient ultimately tested positive for another infectious disease, said Katie Passaretti, MD, medical director for infection prevention at Carolinas HealthCare System, according to the News Observer report.
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