KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 16 — The Health Ministry today confirmed that a suspected Ebola case in Sarawak did not involve the deadly disease, after the Zimbabwean student who triggered the scare tested negative for the virus.

The ministry’s director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that the 24-year-old student only has a respiratory tract infection and is recovering well at the Kuching General Hospital.

“The Health Minister ran lab tests from clinical samples obtained from the patient at the National Public Health Laboratory in Sungai Buloh which came back negative from Ebola virus,” he said in a statement today.

“We want to reiterate that there has been no confirmed cases of the Ebola virus in Malaysia.

“However, we have taken measures to prepare for such an eventuality,” he said adding that the Ministry, through the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre were monitoring the situation.

Yesterday, rumours of a suspected Ebola case had surfaced, sparking fear among Sarawakians of the infectious disease which has killed over 2,400 people in West Africa.

Malaysia’s first suspected Ebola case was reported in Perak last week and later proven to be negative.

According to a news report today by Reuters, the Ebola disease that has spread to five African nations have killed over 2,400 people mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The two other affected countries are Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) closely monitoring for signs of outbreak in other countries.

Ebola symptoms can take from two to 21 days to appear after a patient is exposed to the virus.

The symptoms are wide-ranging and include fever, headache, muscle pain, vomiting, impaired liver and kidney function, as well as internal and external bleeding.