Ebola: Briton who died in Macedonia did not have deadly virus, officials say

The 52-year-old man was staying at the Hotel 8 Super in Skopje, Macedonia, (pictured) when he fell ill and died

A British man who fell ill in a hotel in Macedonia and later died did not have Ebola, officials say (Reuters)

Health officials have said that the Briton who died in Macedonia on Thursday did not succumb to Ebola.

It was initially feared that the 52-year-old man, who was believed to have travelled to the country from London on 2 October, fell ill with the deadly disease, which has killed over 4,000 people so far since spreading through western Africa and beyond.

“We have just received the results from the lab in Hamburg and they are negative for Ebola, which means that the patient did not have the Ebola virus,” Dr Jovanka Kostovska from Macedonia’s Health Ministry's commission for infectious diseases said, according to Reuters.

He had displayed typical Ebola symptoms such as fever, sickness and internal bleeding, and his hotel, called Super 8 in the country’s capital Skopje, was sealed off while 35 others people were also placed into quarantine.

He is understood to have been travelling with a 72-year-old friend, who was also placed into isolation.

A cause of death is not yet known but an autopsy will be carried out in due course. He died around two hours after being admitted to hospital.

At the time of his death, Dr Kostovska said: “These are all symptoms of Ebola, which raises suspicions with this patient,” though Public Health England said it was “unlikely” he had died from the communicable virus.

It comes as some countries begin putting measures in place to prevent the further spread of the virulent disease.

Today Britain staged an eight-hour exercise to test its readiness for an Ebola outbreak, while the US began implementing screening procedures at five airports, starting with New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport.