Brazilian health officials on Friday quarantined a Guinean man feared to have Ebola after he checked in at a clinic with a fever following his arrival from Africa last month.
The 47-year-old man was taken in an air force plane from the southern state of Parana to the National Infectious Disease Institute (Fiocruz) in Rio de Janeiro after arriving at a health center in the town of Cascavel the previous afternoon having had a fever on Wednesday.
Authorities stressed that the man's medical condition is stable that he no longer has a fever, but said he is being isolated as a precaution.
"We consider it a suspect case, as the symptoms were diagnosed within the incubation period" of 21 days, Health Minister Arthur Chioro told a press conference in Brasilia.
"I want to emphasize we have the situation under control -- all procedures were undertaken within the proper response time and according to protocols," Chioro stressed.
Chioro said test results were expected within 24 hours and if it proves negative, a second will be administered.
He said health officials have logged 64 possible contacts between the patient and others after he went to the health center, but only three "direct" contacts with other people.
The patient, who arrived in Brazil on September 19, flew from the Guinean capital Conakry to Argentina, with a layover in Morocco.
He then traveled overland to Brazil, according to television network Globo News, which said he was seeking refugee status.
Because the suspected contamination was 21 days ago -- within the incubation period for Ebola -- Brazilian health officials immediately activated security plans and put the man in quarantine.
Other patients who were in the clinic with him have also been isolated and the site disinfected, said radio network CBN.
Parana state has already had two Ebola alerts that turned out to be false alarms.
But this is the first time the alert has reached the level of the national health ministry, according to newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.
Symptoms of Ebola can resemble other diseases indigenous to Brazil, such as malaria and dengue fever.
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been the countries hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak that erupted at the beginning of the year, killing nearly 4,000 people so far -- roughly half of those infected.
The disease causes fever, diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases internal and external bleeding. It is spread by contact and the exchange of bodily fluids.