A man who had recently returned from Togo, an Ebola-affected country in West Africa, and shown symptoms of the virus died on Tuesday at a hospital in Faisalabad.
Speaking to Dawn, an official at Allied Hospital confirmed that the suspected Ebola patient had died early on Tuesday.
According to initial reports, 40-year-old Zulfiqar Ahmed, who hailed from Punjab’s Chiniot district, was admitted to Faislabad's Allied Hospital on Saturday with high fever.
Doctors suspected that Ahmed might have contracted the deadly Ebola virus since he returned from Togo only a week ago and was bleeding from his nose and mouth.
Speaking to Dawn, Dr Rashid Maqbool at the Allied Hospital had earlier said that the patient’s blood samples had been sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad for laboratory tests and it would take at least two weeks for the results to arrive.
Meanwhile, taking notice of the reports, the Punjab Health department had shifted the patient to the isolation ward at Allied Hospital.
Punjab Health Advisor Khawaja Salman Rafique had told DawnNews that government medical teams had reached Chiniot, where they would perform tests on Ahmed’s relatives and friends in case they also displayed similar symptoms.
World Health Organisation (WHO) teams are also expected to reach the Punjab town.