News: Suspected Ebola Victim Dies In Saudi Arabia: No Hajj & Umrah Visas For Sierra Leone, Guinea & Liberia

UPDATE

News: Suspected Saudi Victim Did Not Die Of Ebola Virus

A Saudi man who died last week after returning from Sierra Leone did not have the Ebola virus, according to initial international laboratory results, Saudi Arabia's Health Ministry said.

The ministry said late Saturday that samples submitted to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came back negative for the Ebola virus, adding that samples were also sent for testing to a laboratory in Germany. The ministry said the CDC is conducting additional tests to further confirm the negative Ebola finding and determine if the patient was infected with a different virus found in Sierra Leone.
The 40-year-old Saudi national died Wednesday in a hospital isolation ward in the Saudi coastal city of Jiddah after showing symptoms of the viral hemorrhagic fever. He was the only suspected Ebola case in the kingdom and had just returned from a trip to affected Sierra Leone.
Ebola, which has no proven vaccine or treatment, has killed more than 900 people this year in four countries in West Africa.
Saudi Arabia is not issuing visas this year to Muslim pilgrims from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea as a precaution to avoid the spread during the hajj pilgrimage, which sees massive crowds of people from around the world gather in Mecca. The decision affects a total of 7,400 pilgrims from those three countries.

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A Saudi Arabian who had travelled to Sierra Leone and had symptoms similar to those found in Ebola sufferers died today, Wednesday Aug 6th of a heart attack, the health ministry said.
"The patient died of cardiac arrest, despite efforts by the medical team to resuscitate him," the ministry website reported.
It added that the man will be buried in the Islamic manner, but under precautions laid down by the world health authorities.
The ministry did not reveal the results of tests carried out abroad on whether the patent had been suffering from the Ebola virus

If confirmed, this would be the first Ebola-related death outside Africa in an outbreak that has killed more than 900 people this year.
The man recently visited Sierra Leone, one of four countries in the outbreak.
World Health Organization (WHO) experts are meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss a response to the outbreak.
The two-day meeting will decide whether to declare a global health emergency.
The government reported a possible infection of its citizens by the virus, raising the fears that the Ebola threat is going global.

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The Saudi health ministry has banned the issuance of Hajj and Umrah visas for Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia because of concerns about the spread of the Ebola virus in these countries.