KARACHI: A 45-year-old man who was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre’s isolation ward soon after his arrival from a West African country two weeks ago was discharged on Tuesday after an Atlanta lab confirmed that he was not a patient of the deadly Ebola virus, officials said.

“The Ministry of National Health Services Regulation & Coordination (MNHSR&C) and WHO are pleased to communicate that the Reference Laboratory for Ebola in CDC Atlanta Collaborating Center has confirmed that the test result of the suspected Ebola case which had been admitted in JPMC is negative,” said a statement jointly issued by the WHO and the health service ministry.

The JPMC authorities said that they released Muhammad Haroon, the suspected Ebola patient, after receiving the report.

“We have released the patient, who was in our isolation ward for more than two weeks, after receiving the report,” said Dr Seemin Jamali, joint executive director of the JPMC.

She said the patient, who worked as a technician in Liberia, went home in Malir.

The joint statement said there was no epidemiological link with Ebola for that suspected case any longer and that all Ebola prevention measures had to be suspended.

“Consequently, Pakistan is currently Ebola free meaning that there is neither a case nor a suspected case of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) anywhere on the national territory,” it declared.

Officials in the provincial health department said that the man of Pakistani origin, working in Liberia, had arrived in the city with high fever and details he mentioned in his health card, a prerequisite along with the embarkation card, led the authorities to refer him to the JPMC.

The WHO Islamabad reiterated the diligence of the airport authorities for having carried out the Ebola epidemic preparedness procedures efficiently and promptly in the identification and handling of that first suspected EVD case in Pakistan.

They also commended the JPMC for having applied the standard operating procedures in safely managing the case all along.

The officials, however, said Ebola preparedness required consistency and strict application of all safety protocols and SOPs for any suspected case until transmission and epidemiological risk was completely eliminated scientifically through the negativity of a viral test.

Officials in Islamabad said they would continue to enhance the capacity of federal and provincial health, airport and civil authorities, in line with the recommendations of the Ebola mission conducted by WHO epidemic control experts whose technical report had been presented and submitted to the national health ministry three weeks ago.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2014