Greek health authorities have dismissed media claims that a 17-year-old Italian girl died from Ebola virus in a hospital in Piraeus on Thursday. The teenager was having vacation with her parents on the island of Naxos when she suffered from high fever and hemorrhagic symptoms. She was rushed with helicopter of the Greek Air Force to a hospital in the Greek capital where she died.
“There is no evidence suggesting that the death of a 17-year-old Italian girl was caused by the Ebola virus”, experts for infectious diseases at the National Public Health Organization(EODY) s said on Wednesday.
According to experts, the results of tests were not compatible with an Ebola infection and scientists at the EODY are continuing to investigate the incident.
The girl had symptoms of a septic shock, the EODY statement said.
The parents brought the girl to the hospital on Naxos with signs of acute septicemia.
The first diagnosis by health personnel on Naxos was that the girl was suffering from meningitis. Given the travels of the family probably in African countries?) the girl was tested also for the Ebola virus. The test results were obviously negative.
Doctos in Naxos hospital evaluated the case as “very serious”, the girl was first transferred by ship to the island of Paros and then with a C-130 helicopter of the Greek Air Force to the hospital in Nikaia, Piraeus, on Tuesday afternoon. Despite doctors efforts the girl died on Wednesday morning.
Results of further laboratory tests are expected tomorrow, Thursday.
The case set health authorities on alert. Medical staff at the Naxos and the Nikaia hospitals have taken preventive treatment against an infectious disease.
“The only diagnosis that it is not Ebola,” said the governor of the General Hospital in Nikaia told newsit.gr. “The cause of death is under investigation under the responsibility of the Greek Disease Prevention Center(KEELPNO),” he said.
UPDATE
Tests results are positive on meningitis, EODY said according to iatropedia.
