Ontario patient tests negative for Ebola, while new border screening measures are in place amid Congo outbreak

TORONTO – A person in Ontario tested negative for Ebola after returning from Ethiopia with symptoms consistent with a range of illnesses, Canada’s top doctor said Friday, noting the risk of the virus affecting people in this country remains low. 

Dr. Joss Reimer, chief public officer of health, said the patient was tested as a precaution because they were feeling ill, and may have been exposed to the virus currently ravaging the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

“We’re not testing all people who have travelled to areas where there may be Ebola, but rather testing is reserved for those people who had symptoms,” Reimer said. 

Ebola has early symptoms common with many other illnesses, such as fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat.

Reimer also outlined how Canada is responding to the outbreak abroad, including new screening measures at the border. Those measures include more staff at common points of entry and screening questions about where people have travelled and if they have symptoms. They came into effect on Wednesday. 

Quarantine officers will be at the border to assess incoming travellers who are flagged in the screening process, she said. 

On the subject of a travel ban, Reimer said those decisions are made by cabinet. Questions have surfaced ever since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suspended the entry of travellers who have been in Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan in the previous 21 days. The ban does not include U.S. citizens and nationals.

Reimer said she will provide cabinet with advice on the “very fluid, rapidly evolving” issue based on a risk assessment that includes whether the virus is spreading to more areas. 

“It’s important that we look at how effective things like travel bans are. We need to be looking at whether or not there is any evidence that the outbreak is escaping the area that it’s currently concentrated,” Reimer said. 

In an earlier press conference from Geneva, the World Health Organization’s director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the risk of Ebola in the region it’s affecting is now “very high,” while saying the global risk remains low.

He has repeatedly stated that this outbreak, which was declared just a week ago, is “spreading rapidly,” reaching the neighbouring province of North Kivu, and Uganda. 

There are now almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, Dr. Tedros said. 

HANTAVIRUS 

Reimer also briefly spoke about a Canadian who tested positive for hantavirus after disembarking a cruise ship where an outbreak began.

She said there’s been no additional cases among the nine travellers isolating in Canada who have connections to the ship where a rodent-borne illness found in Argentina and Chile has infected 12 people internationally, Dr. Tedros said, with the latest confirmed in the Netherlands Friday.

Health officials in British Columbia told The Canadian Press Thursday that the condition of the person who tested positive, a resident from Yukon at a hospital in B.C., remains stable.

The other three passengers who disembarked the ship on the same day and are isolating on Vancouver Island are asymptomatic, including the infected individual’s partner, a spokesperson for the provincial health officer said.

No deaths have been reported since May 2, when the outbreak was first alerted to WHO. All cases have been among crew members and passengers who were on the MV Hondius cruise ship.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 22, 2026.

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