FAISALABAD/ISLAMABAD: A patient who was suspected of having contracted the deadly Ebola virus died at the Allied Hospital in Faisalabad on Monday night. However, a team from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and National Institute of Health (NIH) said on Tuesday that samples taken from the patient tested negative for Ebola.

Chiniot-resident Zulfiqar, 24, was brought to the hospital on Saturday and was being treated in the isolation ward. Tests confirmed that the patient was suffering from dengue fever and Hepatitis C.

“[The patient] died last night at 2am. Tests awaited, could take two weeks,” the Faisalabad district coordination officer told Dawn via text message on Tuesday.

But Allied Hospital Chief Executive Officer Mohammad Ali Tirmazi has constituted a four-member fact-finding committee to investigate issues in patient management, diagnosis and the protective measures taken in Zulfiqar’s case.

Zulfiqar had been working in Togo, West Africa, for the last three years and came back to his hometown of Chiniot nearly 10 days ago. When he was brought to the hospital, the patient had a history of high grade fever. He had a yellowish discoloration of the eyes, was vomiting and had loose motions for five days. The patient had also been treated after vomiting blood in Togo three months ago.

A joint statement released by WHO and the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) on Tuesday said that the Ebola diagnosis was ruled out on the basis of a non-concurrent travel history. Togo is not an Ebola-infected country and the patient did not travel anywhere near areas where the epidemic has spread. Further investigations concluded that the patient was in the terminal stages of Hepatitis C, along with dengue haemorrhagic fever, which was confirmed by lab tests.

As a precautionary measure, the Punjab health department had dispatched a field investigation team to the patient’s hometown and another to Faisalabad, where the patient was admitted, the statement said.

The WHO team provided technical support to the Punjab government in investigating the case and definitely ruled out any suspicions of Ebola.

NHS Secretary Ayub Sheikh told Dawn that the WHO team went into field and collected samples from the patient, which were then analysed at the NIH.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014