UC Davis hospital in Sacramento treating possible Ebola patient

Photo: Ho, REUTERS A picture of the Ebola virus infection, pictured, in specimens from...

Doctors at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento are treating a patient “exhibiting symptoms consistent with Ebola infection,” hospital officials said Thursday.

The patient, who was not identified, was transferred Thursday by ambulance from Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento.

In a statement, the California Department of Public Health said “certain precautions,” including isolating patients and testing them for Ebola, are taken when someone has symptoms of the illness and has recently traveled to Sierra Leone, Liberia or Guinea, the three West African countries at the center of the Ebola outbreak that has killed thousands.

Public health officials did not say whether the patient at UC Davis Medical Center had been to West Africa recently. The patient is being tested for the virus.

UC Davis Medical Center spokeswoman Dorsey Griffith said she did not know what symptoms led doctors to suspect Ebola. She said she did not know the patient’s gender or age.

The hospital remains open and is operating normally, Griffith said. UC Davis Medical Center is a “priority hospital” and “fully prepared to safely assess and treat the patient” according to federal guidelines, she said. Hospital workers have been trained in the use of protective equipment and an isolation room.

Symptoms of Ebola include fever, severe headache, muscle pain, diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain. There is no specific treatment for it.

More than 22,000 people, almost all of them in West Africa, have been infected in the ongoing outbreak, and more than 8,800 have died.

Four people have been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, one of whom died. Six others have been flown from West Africa to be treated in the United States; one of those six died.

There also have been dozens of suspected cases of Ebola in the United States that did not test positive for the disease. In August, a person who may have been exposed to Ebola was tested at a Sacramento hospital. That person tested negative.

Steve Rubenstein and Erin Allday are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com, eallday@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @steverubesf, @erinallday