New Ebola case reported in Sweden with patient isolated in Uppsala hospital

Patient admitted vomiting blood had recently been travelling in East Africa

A man suspected of suffering from the deadly Ebola virus is being treated in isolation in a Swedish hospital.

The patient is in Uppsala University hospital, in the city north of Stockholm, after vomiting blood, and had reportedly returned from a three week trip to Burundi in East Africa.

In a statement, the Uppsala authorities said it was so far “only a matter of suspicion”, adding: “Other diseases are quite possible.”

The hospital in the town of Enkoping where the patient was first admitted had its emergency room shut down and staff who treated the patient were “cared for”, AP reports.

The patient was later transferred to the infection clinic in Uppsala. Test results are expected later today.

“The patient came in Friday morning and reportedly was vomiting blood which may be a symptom of Ebola infection,” hospital spokesman Mikael Kohler told local newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning.

There is no known Ebola outbreak in Burundi, but it borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been fighting an outbreak for almost six months.

The disease has killed 356 of the 585 people known to have been infected.

The epidemic in a volatile part of Congo is the second worst ever, according to the World Health Organisation.

The largest outbreak was in 2013-2016 in West Africa, where more than 28,000 cases were confirmed and over 11,000 died by the time the WHO declared the epidemic over.

The haemorrhagic fever's virus is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of those infected.

Symptoms can appear similar to those of flu, before the onset of vomiting, diarrhoea, a rash and internal and external bleeding. It is often fatal.

All major outbreaks have been in Africa, though isolated cases have been reported outside the continent.

In August 2014, British volunteer nurse William Pooley became the first Briton to contract Ebola after working in Sierra Leone. He was flown back to the UK for emergency treatment and went on to make a full recovery.

The same year, Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey was also contracted the virus after returning from Sierra Leone and fell severely ill, spending several weeks in London’s Royal Free Hospital.