Penza, 29 October 2014. PenzaNews. The Penza medical workers did a good job when a Nigerian student with heat fever was hospitalized with a possible case of Ebola, said Sergei Oleinik, the deputy chief medical officer on epidemiology for the Penza region special medical care center that accepted the patient.

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“Irregardless of the diagnosis we will give to the Nigerian student, he arrived to Russia during the Ebola incubation timespan. Even if he has malaria, hepatitis or only an aggravated case of URTI, it could have been Ebola instead. All the better that our professionals were fully armed and, I think, did a fairly good job,” he wrote in his LiveJournal.

Sergei Oleinik stressed that the doctors did well because of good training.

“Last week, we had discussed the preparedness training agenda in the Ministry of Health [of he Penza region]. Although we were recommended to make it easier on Monday (thus improving the preparations considerably), the staff already began the work. The final ‘rehearsal’ (like in a theater) went on Monday. We discussed everyting with the chief epidemiologist and went through the path our test patient should take. And right when the ‘rehearsal’ is ending, we learn that a Nigerian student was admitted. It happens! We braced ourselves almost immediately, the chief medical officer set up a crisis response center, and the work began according to plan,” the deputy chief medical officer explained.

At the same time, he pointed out that several journalists, including those of federal media outlets, mistook certain facts while covering the events in Penza. Among other things, Sergei Oleinik stressed that the people who contacted with the Nigerian student were not quarantined, but placed under medical surveillance.

“A quarantine is when armed forces circle the hospital and let nobody in or out. And here we have only medical surveillance. […] So, those who contacted him are under med surveillance, and among other things thermometry. The illness of the student of ours, by the way, was discovered via thermometry,” said the doctor.

Sergei Oleinik also added that the news that “Ebola diagnosis has not been confirmed” is not true.

“The MinHealth [Penza region Ministry of Health] staff said no such thing during the press conference! They only said that the samples were sent to the special research center in Sergiev Posad,” clarified the deputy chief medical officer on epidemiology for the Penza region special medical care center.

As PenzaNews agency reported earlier, the Nigerian student arrived to Penza on October 17 to study in the Belinsky Pedagogical Institute of the Penza State University. He is the first patient in the Penza region to be hospitalized with a suspected case of Ebola. The doctors registered high temperature, which is among the symptoms of the disease.

The young man is currently residing in the Penza regional special medical care center, where he will stay until his diagnosis is established. The doctors took all the necessary samples. Blood samples were sent to the Special Diacrisis Center of the Ministry of Defense in Sergiev Posad, and the results are expected by the end of this week.

Special security arrangements were taken in the special medical care center that received the hospitalized Nigerian student with a suspected case of Ebola.