Ebola Scare Hits Nudist Tourist Spot on Canary Islands
A nude beach had a false Ebola alarm when a boat of West Africans showed up.
— -- An Ebola scare hit an unexpected place this week: a nude beach.
A boat arrived Wednesday on a Maspalomas beach in the Canary Islands, filled with nearly two-dozen undocumented travelers, according to Reuters. Some of the travelers had fevers, prompting officials to initiate their own Ebola protocol, isolating the migrants on the beach for five hours as nude tourists looked on.
Officials in masks asked the travelers whether they had been to one of the West African countries affected by the Ebola outbreak, but eventually determined none of them had Ebola, according to Spanish newspaper El País. Four of the sickest people in the group were hospitalized for other reasons, and the rest were transported in a beach garbage truck to begin the deportation process, according to the newspaper.
The Canary Islands are a territory of Spain off the northwest coast of Africa.
Officials also burned the boat the migrants arrived in, the newspaper reported.
According to the latest case counts from the World Health Organization, 13,268 people in West Africa have become infected with Ebola since the outbreak began in March. Of those, 4,960 people have died. These numbers are underestimates, the organization has said.
ABC News's Jose Morales and Leonardo Mayorga contributed to this report.
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