Ebola virus (file)
Ebola virus (file)Thinkstock

Concerns that a young Nigerian tourist hospitalized in Jerusalem's Sha'arei Tzedek Hospital may have been carrying the lethal Ebola virus were dismissed on Saturday night, as test results revealed she did not have the disease.

It was found in the tests that the tourist was suffering from an infection in her digestive system, as opposed to the potentially life-threatening Ebola virus that has recently been spreading worldwide.

The twenty-year-old tourist was released from solitary confinement where she had been placed until the test results were received, as required by the Ministry of Health.

After complaining of a high fever, the tourist was hospitalized on Friday. While the tests were conducted for Ebola, hospital staff said the chances of the case actually being Ebola were low.

The tourist worked in the health system in Nigeria, which is not included in the list of countries at risk for the epidemic by the Israeli Health Ministry. She also did not visit a hospital in Nigeria in the month before becoming ill, removing her from one of the risk criteria.

Over 1,900 people have died since a recent Ebola epidemic broke out in March, including nearly 400 in the last week alone. 3,500 were infected with Ebola in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and other African countries. The mortality rate from the disease is 51%.

The virus causes a severe hemorrhagic fever, inducing vomiting, diarrhea, as well as internal and external bleeding. 

"Ebola virus is one of the deadliest killers known," Ben Neuman, a virologist at the British University of Reading, has said of the disease. "If this virus spread between people more easily, it would probably be more deadly than the black plague. Fortunately, up to this point, it has not."