File Photo: Ebola virus. (Reuters)
Nicaraguan authorities have quarantined a US embassy staffer who came into contact with Ebola patients in Liberia, the health ministry said Monday, urging Washington to send a plane to evacuate him.
The 51-year-old employee of the US embassy in Nicaragua "confirmed that he spent time in health facilities where Ebola patients are being treated" during a trip to the west African country, said the ministry's head of epidemiology, Carlos Saenz.
He did not say when the trip took place or identify the employee.
The Nicaraguan government has asked the US State Department to send a plane "with all equipment necessary" to take the man back to the United States, said Saenz.
In the meantime, the health ministry has isolated the man at his home, set up a security corridor around it and ordered a medical team to visit him twice a day.
The man does not show symptoms of the disease and the measures are strictly preventive, Saenz said.
Last year Nicaragua declared a health alert over Ebola and detained at least 16 undocumented immigrants from Africa, placing them in quarantine.
But no cases of the hemorrhagic fever have been detected in the Central American country.
The Ebola outbreak that erupted last year has ravaged the West African nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, killing more than 10,600 people in the past 15 months.
But the number of new infections has fallen, and the World Health Organization said last week that the risk of international spread appeared to be receding.