A "low-risk" patient taken to a Barrie, Ont., hospital Saturday morning has been transferred to a specialized Ebola response centre in Toronto, according to officials at the Royal Victoria Health Centre.
The patient returned from West Africa about ten days ago and was taken to Royal Valley by paramedics who recognized the patient was displaying possible symptoms of Ebola. The paramedics who transported the patient were wearing full protective gear, the hospital said.
The patient was then placed in a "negative pressure trauma room" and treated by a specialized team. The patient did not enter the emergency triage or hospital waiting area, and other people were moved from the wing before the patient arrived.
"Only members of the specialized, trained response team, wearing head-to-toe protective gear, were permitted entry to the trauma wing," the statement said. "Although the risk is considered low-risk the patient will be tested to rule out Ebola at the designated centre."
At a news briefing Saturday evening, hospital and public health officials said the patient was transferred to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in downtown Toronto. They did not provide any other details about the person or what country the person had recently returned from.
There have been no confirmed cases of Ebola in Canada, though patients have been isolated and tested for the often fatal virus in multiple provinces in recent months.
The latest Ebola outbreak began in West Africa last March, and has been largely concentrated in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. About 23,000 people have been infected thus far and more than 10,000 of those have died, according to the World Health Organization.
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