Beijing denies 1st domestic Ebola case

Beijing's health authorities on Thursday denied rumor that the city had reported its first Ebola infection case after an emergency plan to tackle the outbreak of the deadly disease was circulated among some residents.

A source from the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control told the Global Times on Thursday that the contingency plan is "a common practice to raise awareness of disease control among the public."

The source went on to deny that there was an Ebola infection case in the city as many who had received the notice suspected that there was already an Ebola patient in Beijing. The plan was issued by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning on January 19 and was distributed to hospitals, airports and other organizations.

The plan provides step-by-step procedures on what aid and health officials are supposed to do when an Ebola infection case is detected under various scenarios.

The scenarios include how to transfer a diagnosed Chinese Ebola patient from abroad to China, the procedures to follow when an Ebola patient is identified at airports or other entry or exit check points, and what hospitals should do when a domestic patient is diagnosed with the deadly disease.

Three West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are at the epicenter of the devastating outbreak of Ebola. By the first week of 2015, in total, 22,495 people have been infected with the virus across nine countries, and 8,981 of them have died, according to the latest numbers.