Albania detains illegal immigrants with Ebola symptoms

UN: OK to use untested Ebola drugs in outbreak?

TIRANA -- Albanian police Tuesday detained some 40 illegal immigrants from Eritrea, five of whom have symptoms of the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever.

Local media said the illegal immigrants were arrested near the city of Vlore, in south Albania. The five who have suspected symptoms were taken to a local hospital for further tests.

There's no exact statistics of refugees coming from poor and war-torn African countries to Albania. Official data shows that in the first half of 2014, about 500 Eritrean and Somali immigrants were detained in Albania. Their destination is some of the Western European countries.

The largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded began in Guinea in December 2013 and spread to Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, where a total of 1,848 cases have been reported, including 1,013 deaths, according to the latest report by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO warned last Friday that the disease is now a "public health emergency of international concern" and called for a coordinated international response to stop and reverse the international spread of Ebola.