Geneva (AFP) - A Guinean asylum seeker has been hospitalised in Switzerland with suspected Ebola, health authorities announced Tuesday.

"The individual fulfils the criteria for a suspected case of Ebola virus," the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health said in a statement.

He was being monitored under tightly controlled conditions at the University Hospital in the western city of Lausanne, it said.

"He is undergoing medical examinations in order to determine whether he is indeed suffering from the disease," it added.

The office said that the man had arrived at an asylum centre in the western town of Vallorbe on September 17, and had told officials that he had left Guinea for France two days earlier.

Officials at the centre acted fast because the man said he had lost a family member to Ebola, placing him in quarantine under watch from physicians.

After he began showing feverish symptoms on Tuesday, the authorities decided to transfer him immediately to Lausanne amid tight security.

The office stressed that the disease does not spread until the symptoms appear, and that there was no risk to the local population, saying the swift handling of the case showed the effectiveness of Ebola monitoring in the country.