Suspected Johannesburg Ebola patient tested negative

Tests on the first suspected case of Ebola in Johannesburg have come back negative, DA Gauteng Health spokesman said on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Bloom claimed he had received information regarding a possible case at Rahima Moosa Hospital, west of Johannesburg.

"The patient is from Guinea and is presently being kept in isolation. If it is a confirmed Ebola case then the patient will be transferred to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital which has been designated to treat Ebola with all due safeguards," he said.

This would have been the first case of Ebola in South Africa since the latest outbreak.

However, Bloom later tweeted that tests carried out on the patient had come back negative for the virus.

There has been no confirmation of this so far from the National Health Department, which is expected to release a statement later this afternoon.

Since the latest Ebola epidemic was declared in Guinea in March 2014, the disease has since spread to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria killing over 1000 people.

The number of people affected and killed by the outbreak makes it the deadliest Ebola eruption in history.