A woman suspected of having Ebola after falling ill Friday morning in a Pentagon parking lot did not test positive for the disease, according to a joint statement from Arlington Public Health and Fairfax Public Health officials.
Pentagon officials said Friday that the woman began feeling sick while aboard a shuttle from the Pentagon to the U.S. Marine Corps change-of-command ceremony at Marine Barracks Washington. The woman exited the bus and vomited in a Pentagon parking lot, according to Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren.
Health officials became concerned when the woman indicated that she had traveled recently to Sierra Leone — a country hard-hit by the Ebola outbreak — according to Joxel Garcia, director of the D.C. Department of Health. Arlington County Fire Department dispatched took the woman to Inova Fairfax Hospital for observation, according to Col. Warren.
The Ebola scare set off a scramble by health officials in the capital region to interview all 22 passengers, after the bus was stopped Virginia Avenue in the southeast section of the District. The process took nearly four hours, according to Mr. Garcia.
“It takes a little while to ask question to 22 people, and to make sure that the questions are applicable to this investigation,” he said.
The passengers were eventually released for self-monitoring and the bus was returned to the custody of the Pentagon, Mr. Garcia said.
• Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this article.
• Maggie Ybarra can be reached at mybarra@washingtontimes.com.
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