Ebola Health Center

Especially during an outbreak, doctors will conduct blood tests on patients who have Ebola symptoms to confirm or rule out Ebola virus disease.

But making the diagnosis can be difficult with patients who may be within their first few days of infection. Early symptoms — like fever and nausea — are common to many diseases, and on the scale of all diseases, Ebola virus disease is relatively rare.

If a patient has been in an area with a current Ebola outbreak or has come into contact with an infected person or animal, doctors will typically monitor that patient for symptoms and place him or her in isolation until the results of a blood test clear or confirm Ebola.