24/03/2014 17:50
Virus in Guinea capital Conakry not Ebola
Tests on suspected cases of deadly Ebola virus in Guinea's capital Conakry are negative, the BBC reported, citing health officials.
On Sunday, UN officials said that the virus had spread to the capital, a port city of up to two million, from remote forests in the south, where some 59 people have died.
But a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman told the BBC the Conakry tests had come back negative.
Ebola is spread by close contact and kills between 25% and 90% of victims.
There is no known cure or vaccine.
Symptoms include internal and external bleeding, diarrhoea and vomiting.
After two people died from a haemorrhagic fever in Conakry, samples were sent to the Pasteur Institute in neighbouring Senegal for testing.
WHO spokesman Collins Boakye-Agyemang told the BBC these had shown that the victims had not been infected with Ebola. It is not clear what killed them.
The outbreak is said to be the first time Ebola has hit Guinea.
Recent cases have been thousands of miles away, in Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Outbreaks of Ebola occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests, the World Health Organization says.