Brazil monitors two patients for possible Ebola infection

Health authorities in Brazil are monitoring two patients for possible Ebola infection in the country's two biggest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

A man, 37, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) "exhibited symptoms such as fever", São Paulo's state government said.

In Rio state, the health department said it had activated safety protocols after a Belgian man who arrived from Uganda showed "viral symptoms such as cough, chills and diarrhoea".

If confirmed, they would be the first infection cases outside Africa since the outbreak began in DR Congo.

There are now more than 1,000 suspected Ebola cases in DR Congo, with at least 246 deaths. Uganda has reported nine confirmed cases and one death.

The current outbreak has been caused by a rare strain of Ebola known as Bundibugyo, which has no proven vaccine and kills about a third of those infected.

While the two patients in Brazil are still being monitored for Ebola, they have already both been diagnosed with other conditions: in São Paulo, the man from DR Congo tested positive for meningitis and is in a serious condition, while in Rio, the Belgian patient tested positive for malaria.

The respective diagnoses do not rule out the possibility of also having Ebola, officials say.

On Saturday the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned that the rapid spread of the virus had caused an "alarming situation", with an unprecedented number of cases recorded so soon into the outbreak.