Italian nurse positive for Ebola not in critical conditions

The Italian male nurse who tested positive for the Ebola virus after flowing back to Italy from Sierra Leone was not in critical conditions, doctors at the Rome hospital where he is being treated said on Wednesday.

When he was admitted to the Lazzaro Spallanzani hospital, which specializes in infectious diseases, the patient was "febrile, lucid and cooperative," doctors said in a bulletin published on the hospital's website.

The bulletin said the patient has started specific antiviral treatment with a non-registered drug that has been authorized by the Italian competent authority for drugs AIFA.

Earlier on Wednesday, local media reported that a few people have been placed in isolation as they entered into contact with the nurse in Sardinia island, where he was residing before he showed the first symptoms of Ebola on Sunday.

However, patients are not contagious till the appearance of symptoms, and the nurse did not have symptoms when he flew back from Sierra Leone to Sardinia on Friday, Giuseppe Ippolito, Scientific Director of the Lazzaro Spallanzani hospital, told Xinhua.

"We are examining the patient's conditions day-to-day and the treatment will be adjusted according to the results," Ippolito said.

The 37-year-old nurse with medical NGO Emergency was the second Italian to contract Ebola during the current outbreak of the deadly virus in west Africa which has claimed over 11,000 lives by the latest count of the World Health Organization (WHO).

A doctor with the same NGO also contracted the virus while combating the Ebola disease in Sierra Leone last winter and was treated at the same hospital for several weeks before he was declared completely healed.

Ebola is a virus which causes an often fatal illness if untreated and is transmitted from wild animals or people through close contact with blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids. Endit