Health chiefs bid to avoid ebola panic as suspected victim dies in Donegal

Health officials last night moved to allay fears of a potential ebola outbreak as it carried out tests on a Donegal man who died just days after returning to Ireland from a disease blackspot.

Darina O’Flanagan, head of the HSE Health Protection Surveillance Centre, said: “In general, the risk of contracting ebola virus disease is extremely low and would involve very close personal contact with the infected individual or their body fluids for there to be any risk at all.”

The HSE said that, as a precautionary measure, “appropriate infection control procedures” had been put in place in the community and at the mortuary where the remains of the suspected victim, Dessie Quinn from Mountcharles, were being kept pending the outcome of laboratory tests.