Senegal has become the fifth West African country to confirm a case of Ebola after a student arrived from neighbouring Guinea carrying the disease.
Health minister Awa Marie Coll Seck said the young man had turned up for treatment at a hospital in the Senegalese capital of Dakar but concealed that he had had close contact with victims in his home country.
She said Guinean authorities said the student, from the Guinean capital of Conakry, had disappeared three weeks ago while under surveillance for having close contact with Ebola victims.
“The results of tests carried out by the Pasteur Institute in Dakar were positive (for Ebola),” the minister said.
The current outbreak of the deadly virus, first detected in the jungles of south-east Guinea in March, is the most severe ever seen.
At least 2,500 people have been infected, with more than 1,550 people killed.
Most of these were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia but six people have also died in Nigeria.
