s about the 26-year-old Ebola patient having infected other passengers while travelling from Liberia to India; he is kept in an isolation unit at Airport Health Organisation in Delhi. According to sources, latest reports of the laboratory test conducted at National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) has not found any residual of the Ebola virus in patient's throat saliva or urine—body secretions that could have spread infection to others.
"The Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests for identifying Ebola virus in throat saliva and urine sample is negative," confirmed a scientist. He said the health ministry has been informed about the development.
A senior doctor, looking after the patient, added, "Past researches have shown that the virus can remain in body secretions such as urine or the saliva for about three weeks after the symptoms are cured. This patient has already passed that period and result is on expected lines." The doctor said tests will be repeated on the semen and stool samples to ascertain there is no remnant of the virus before discharging him.
It is a known fact that during recovery from Ebola Virus Disease, person continues to shed virus in body fluids for variable periods. It is unlikely that the person may infect others through personal contact. However, presence of virus in his semen samples may have the possibility of transmitting the disease through sexual route up to 90 days from time of clinical cure.
The 26-year-old Ebola patient, who worked in Liberia, was admitted to a local health facility on September 11 and got discharged on September 30. He travelled from Liberia to India and reached Delhi on November 10 carrying a certificate of medical clearance from the ministry of health and social welfare, government of Liberia mentioning that 'he has successfully undergone care and treatment related to Ebola Virus Disease and after post treatment assessment he has been declared free of any clinical signs and symptoms, and confirmed negative by laboratory analysis'. His blood samples too tested negatives be positive for Ebola virus by RT-PCR. It was further put through gene structure test to identify the genetic code of the virus that showed it to be of Zaire origin - the most of the five strains of Ebola virus causing an outbreak in West Africa.
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