By Jung Min-ho
The government said Friday that a 39-year-old Nigerian man was quarantined after being diagnosed with a high fever. He is undergoing a medical examination to determine whether he has been infected with the Ebola virus.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) is conducting detailed tests on the man, who arrived in Incheon International Airport at 3:38 p.m. Thursday, on a flight that originated from the Nigerian city of Lagos, with a short layover in Doha, Qatar.
The flight attendants, inspectors and KCDC officials who spoke with him are being monitored. The Health and Welfare Ministry also said it will report the case to the World Health Organization (WHO).
When he arrived at the airport, his body temperature was 38.3 degrees Celsius.
His condition got better later. When quarantine officers checked his body temperature again at 6:20 p.m., it was 37.6 degrees Celsius.
But despite his improving conditions immigration officials later rejected his entry into the country because he did not clarify the purpose of his visit.
He was put on a plane heading back to Doha the next day, but had to return to Incheon International Airport after he suffered from high fever.
When the quarantine officers checked his temperature again at 2:30 a.m., it reached 39.7 degrees Celsius.
Other passengers on the plane refused to stay in Korea so they returned to Doha.
The man has been placed in a government-designated hospital, the location of which is unknown.
According to the KCDC, the man is a resident of Aba, a Nigerian city 500 kilometers from Lagos, where Ebola cases have been reported. More conclusive test results will come at a later date.
Ebola, a highly contagious illness, is sweeping across certain parts of Western Africa, and has killed more than 1,900 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO said there have been 3,500 confirmed or probable cases mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. But the virus has recently spread to southern Nigeria, where three cases have been confirmed and 60 people are considered “high risk.”
The ministry said that it is unlikely that he is an Ebola patient because his fever fluctuates up and down. This is different from an Ebola fever where those inflicted have their temperature levels remain high.