Pentagon Ebola scare: Car park shut after woman 'back from West Africa' vomits

Part of the Pentagon has been shut down in an Ebola scare after a woman who has reportedly visited West Africa vomited in the car park.

Police closed an entrance and a section of the 17-lane car park as a precaution on Friday and initiated infectious disease protocols.

Officials in Arlington County, Virginia, where the US Department of Defense headquarters are based, sent in a “HazMat” team in protective suits and were treating it as a possible Ebola case.

The woman, who was taken to a local hospital, had been transferred from a Metro bus to a shuttle taking guests to a military ceremony for General Joe Dunford, who is taking over as commander of the US Marine Corps.

She got off the shuttle before it left the Pentagon car park and vomited, an official said, then told paramedics she had recently been to West Africa.

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Other passengers on the bus were quarantined temporarily following the incident shortly after 9am local time.

A military official said the patient, who has not been named, works for Total Spectrum, whose website says it is a lobbying and public relations firm.

The managing director, Steve Gordon, told The Associated Press the Pentagon had contacted him, and he said the woman has not been out of the Washington area.

The FBI and is investigating the woman's background and travel history.

It is transmitted through contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids.

A Liberian man, who later died, became the first person to be diagnosed with the disease on US soil last month and two nurses who treated him contracted the virus.

Additional reporting by AP