snopes.com: Kansas City Ebola Panic

On 5 October 2014, rumors of a suspected case of Ebola in Kansas City, Missouri spread on the internet despite a low probability the patient involved had been exposed to the virus. Dr. Rex Archer, director of Health at the Kansas City Health Department, said there was no reason to believe the patient had been exposed to or developed Ebola: 

"The likelihood we think is very low. No one has caught Ebola from somebody else in this country. It has not spread anywhere in this country," said Dr. Rex Archer, director of Health at the Kansas City Health Department....

"This person was supposedly in Nigeria and had come here from there but we have no evidence that they were actually where any of the other cases were," Archer said. The patient's only Ebola-like symptom was a 102-degreefever on Saturday night.

 

Ebola was not suspected at the time of the patient's initial treatment at the facility, but reports still circulated of Ebola quarantines at a local apartment building and the hospital to which the patient had been transported: 

At about 9:30 Saturday night, a Kansas City apartment building was sealed off as a seriously ill person was taken to Research Medical Center for treatment. A source close to the situation said "all or part of the medical facility was then quarantined."

 

Later the same day, public health officials in Kansas issued a statement to combat rumors of an Ebola case in the area: 

We have seen online reports that a patient at Research Medical Center is suspected of having Ebola. These reports are inaccurate. Research Medical Center is caring for a patient who presented to our Brookside Campus emergency department, however, the patient does not have the symptom profile of Ebola.

 

Local health department spokesman Jeff Hershberger commented on the Ebola panic in Kansas City: 

There was a social media frenzy about the possibility of Ebola in Kansas City ... We're still exploring how this happened.

 

Hershberger indicated that the Ebola fears and subsequent social media panic may have originated with calls from worried neighbors to media sources. As health officials indicated, the patient in Kansas City never fit the symptom profile for Ebola infection. 

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/info/news/ebolakc.asp#3SSk2yWdOlGvDlCm.99