A general view of the arrival hall at Terminal 3 of Delhi airport. (Agence France-Presse)
Hours after it was reported that an Indian national who was cured of Ebola in Liberia has been quarantined in Delhi, Union Health Minister JP Nadda said that the government is cautious and there is no need to panic.
"It was a case of high risk patient who had already undergone treatment for Ebola. When he came to India, he was kept under observation. That person is kept in isolation and situation is being closely monitored. We are cautious and there is no need to panic. The situation is under control," Mr Nadda said.
According to a statement by the Health Ministry, the 26-year-old man continued to show traces of the virus in samples of his semen after arriving in the country.
The ministry said that the Indian national had been shown to be negative for Ebola in tests conforming to World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, but had been quarantined as a precautionary measure when he arrived at New Delhi airport on November 10. Later, tests of his semen detected traces of the virus.
"It is not an Ebola case, he is an Ebola-treated patient who is negative in blood but whose body fluid is positive. He has no symptoms," news agency Reuters quoted a Health Ministry official as saying.
The ministry said three blood samples from the man tested negative for the disease, which means he is considered recovered according to standards set by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
India has screened thousands of passengers travelling from Ebola-hit West Africa in recent weeks.
Peter Piot, a former WHO official who was one of the discoverers of the virus, has in the past expressed concerns about the disease spreading to India. There are nearly 45,000 Indian nationals living in West Africa.
The current outbreak of Ebola is the worst on record. It has killed at least 5,177 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, according to the latest figures from the WHO.