Man Being Evaluated At Beth Israel For Possible Ebola

A man who had recently been to Liberia and arrived at a Braintree medical center Sunday afternoon complaining of a headache and muscle aches has been transferred to a Boston hospital for evaluation.

The patient's arrival at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates briefly prompted the building's closure. A statement from Harvard Vanguard did not mention Ebola, and said all steps were taken "out of an abundance of caution."

"We immediately notified authorities and the patient was securely removed from the building and put into an ambulance now headed to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center," Sunday's statement read.

A spokesman at the hospital, Dr. Kenneth Sands, said in a press conference Sunday that the patient is in a special isolation unit and if deemed appropriate to test for Ebola it would take more than a full day to get results back.

The Department of Public Health said in a statement that it has worked with local hospitals on suspected Ebola cases over the past several months "and they have all been ruled out."

Ebola symptoms include a fever, flu-like body aches and abdominal pain, and then vomiting and diarrhea.

"Today's efforts reinforced my belief that the City is more than prepared to deal with any scenario like this," Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said in a statement. "We take any threat to public health very seriously, but we must educate ourselves about Ebola precautions and do what we can to quell unnecessary public panic."

With reporting from the Associated Press and the WBUR Newsroom