Brazilian health authorities have launched active monitoring protocols for two suspected Ebola cases located in the nation’s two largest urban centers, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, as a growing outbreak of the rare virus continues to spread across Central Africa.
According to officials from São Paulo’s state government, a 37-year-old male traveler from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has developed Ebola-compatible symptoms, most notably a persistent fever. Across the country in Rio de Janeiro, state health officials activated full safety protocols after a Belgian traveler arriving from Uganda presented with common viral Ebola symptoms including cough, body chills, and diarrhea.
Preliminary diagnostic results for both patients are scheduled to be released next week. If either tests positive for the virus, they will mark the first confirmed Ebola infections detected outside of Africa since the current outbreak began in DR Congo.
As of this update, the outbreak has already caused severe public health damage across Central Africa: DR Congo has recorded more than 1,000 suspected Ebola cases, with at least 246 confirmed deaths linked to the virus. Neighboring Uganda has confirmed nine cases and one fatality connected to the outbreak.
This outbreak is driven by the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a pathogen that currently has no widely approved or proven vaccine. The strain kills roughly one-third of all people it infects.
While both patients are being monitored for Ebola, existing testing has already identified alternative diagnoses: the DR Congolese traveler in São Paulo tested positive for meningitis and remains in serious condition, while the Belgian traveler in Rio de Janeiro received a positive malaria diagnosis. Brazilian public health officials emphasize that these existing diagnoses do not rule out concurrent Ebola infection.
Ebola is a zoonotic virus that typically circulates in wild animal populations, most commonly fruit bats. Human outbreaks most often begin when people handle or consume meat from infected animals. Once a human is infected, the virus spreads to other people through direct contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids, including sweat, saliva, blood, semen, feces, urine, and vomit.
Over the weekend, the international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) issued an urgent warning about the outbreak’s trajectory, saying the virus’s fast spread has created an “alarming situation.” The organization noted that the current outbreak has already seen an unprecedented number of cases recorded just a short time after it was first detected.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is currently on a visit to Ituri province in DR Congo, the region hardest hit by the outbreak, where he is meeting with response teams and overseeing local containment efforts. Even with the suspected cases now being monitored outside of Africa, the WHO has repeatedly emphasized that large-scale global spread of the virus remains highly unlikely.