The Pentagon confirmed an Ebola scare on Friday in one of its parking lots when a women who recently traveled to Africa vomited after getting off a bus headed to a high-level Marine Corps ceremony.
Few details were immediately available about the woman, who was described by one defense official as a civilian and not a Defense Department employee. Officials said they did not know exactly where she had traveled to in Africa or whether she had a fever.
The Pentagon said she was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital at 9:53 a.m. (1353 GMT), 43 minutes after Pentagon police identified her.
The Pentagon said the general area of the parking lot where she vomited was closed off, as was one of the Pentagon's entrances, "out of an abundance of caution and to allow the investigation to proceed."
The defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bus she had been on was headed to a Marine Corps ceremony to mark the passing of command from one leader to another, an exclusive event with a restricted guest list.
After the woman departed, the bus continued toward the ceremony but it was later held, with its passengers on board allowed off for "comfort breaks," the official said. The current status of the bus was unclear.
The incident comes amid mounting alarm in the United States about the risks from Ebola after two nurses who cared for an Ebola patient in Texas contracted the virus, which has killed more than 4,500 people, mostly in West Africa.
The U.S. military has some 500 troops in West Africa as part of America's efforts to help contain Ebola at its source, a number set to grow to up to 4,000. The general overseeing the military effort on the ground, which includes building Ebola treatment units, said on Thursday no U.S. military personnel have shown Ebola symptoms so far.
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