Medics in Sweden are investigating a suspected case of Ebola, according to local reports.

A patient was rushed to Skane University Hospital in Lund, near Malmö, on Monday after suffering symptoms linked to the killer virus.

They arrived with a high temperature and fever, and had just returned from an area with confirmed Ebola cases, the hospital said.

The patient's symptoms and travel history prompted doctors to immediately suspect Ebola, according to Swedish newspaper Aftenbladet.

Medics say that while Ebola is unlikely, they can't rule out the virus until test results come back.

A patient was rushed to Skane University Hospital in Lund, near Malmö, on Monday after suffering symptoms linked to the killer virus

Medics in Sweden are investigating a suspected case of Ebola after a patient was rushed to Skane University Hospital in Lund with symptoms linked to the killer virus

'There are confirmed cases of Ebola in the area where the person has been staying,' Maria Josephson, director of operations at the infection clinic, said.

'Ebola is unlikely, but it cannot be ruled out until we have received a test response,' she added.

The patient's age, gender and name have not yet been released. If they do have the disease, they will be just the fifth patient to ever be diagnosed on European soil.

It is not currently clear where they had visited. However, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been battling an outbreak for more than a year.

It is not the first Ebola scare in Sweden. In January, another patient was feared to have been struck down with the lethal virus.

The young man was kept in isolation at the University Hospital in Uppsala before it was revealed that he did not have the infection.

It comes just months after an Ebola outbreak in the Congo, deemed the second biggest in history, was declared an international emergency.

The death toll in the African nation soared past 2,100 and the number of cases has hit 3,200.

Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever, killed at least 11,000 across the world after it decimated West Africa and spread rapidly over the space of two years.

It was first spotted in regions close to the River Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which gave the disease its name.

That epidemic was officially declared over back in January 2016, when Liberia was announced to be Ebola-free by the WHO.

The Ebola death toll in the Democratic Republic of Congo tops 2,000 a year after the outbreak was declared, government data shows

The fever spread rapidly during an epidemic in 2014, with cases reported in 10 countries - including eight in the US.

Many aid agencies volunteered to help stop it spreading, including British nurse Pauline Cafferkey, who was left critically ill by the deadly disease.

She became the first victim of the epidemic to be diagnosed on British soil and spent almost a month in an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in north-west London.

Ms Cafferkey was readmitted to hospitals with Ebola complications twice in 2016.

A Spanish healthcare worker became the first person to catch Ebola outside of Africa in October 2014, after caring for a patient repatriated from Sierra Leone. She recovered after a month-long stay in hospital.

The virus was then detected on Italian soil in May, when a healthcare worker flew back to Rome after volunteering in Sierra Leone. He did not display symptoms for three days and was allowed home from hospital the following month.

Ebola was first recorded on European soil in 1976, when a former lab technician accidentally pricked his finger with an Ebola sample.

Geoffrey Platt revealed he spent 40 days in quarantine after the incident, while he was working at the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

Ebola is most often passed to humans by fruit bats, but scientists believe antelope, porcupines, gorillas and chimpanzees could also be to blame.

It can be transmitted between humans through blood, secretions and other bodily fluids of people - and surfaces - that have been infected.