The minister told the press today that a male university student from Guinea, travelling to the country with the disease, was the index case.

 

Awa Marie Coll Seck, Senegal's Minister of Health, confirmed the country's first case of Ebola on Friday.

 

The minister told the press today that a male university student from Guinea, travelling to the country with the disease, was the index case. He went to a hospital in Dakar, the country's capital, on Tuesday, though doctors did not know that he was infected.

 

By Wednesday, a disease surveillance team in Guinea alerted authorities that they lost contact with a person who had been under watch after contact with sick persons three weeks prior. They suspected the young man was the missing person, eventally tracking him to the hospital in Dakar. He was immediately quarantined, and is said to be in "satisfactory" condition. At this time they do not know how the young man entered the country.

 

Senegal is now the fifth West African country affected by the EVD outbreak.