A Fort Hood soldier who recently returned from West Africa was found dead Tuesday morning at an off-base residence in Killeen, Texas.
Police officers from Killeen are working with Fort Hood officials to investigate the death of the 24-year-old soldier, whose name was not released. Initial tests on the soldier were negative for the Ebola virus, said officials at Carl R. Darnall Medical Center. The more conclusive PCR Assay test confirmed those preliminary findings later Tuesday.
"(Center) officials have notified national, state and local officials that there is no evidence of a public health threat or EVD (Ebola virus disease) exposure to community or law enforcement officials involved in the current investigation of the death of a Fort Hood soldier," the center said in a statement.
The soldier had recently returned to Texas on emergency leave and was under established guidelines to self-monitor himself twice-a-day and report his status to medical officials, a statement from Fort Hood earlier said.
The Pentagon mobilized an additional 2,000 Army Reserve and Army National Guard soldiers in mid-November to help combat the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The soldier, who returned to the U.S. on Jan. 7, had been deployed to Liberia with the 36th Engineering Brigade to construct hospitals for Ebola patients, officials said.
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