A 40-year old Liberian who arrived in Nigeria's most populous city of Lagos on Sunday is suspected to be an Ebola virus carrier, Nigeria's health authorities said Thursday.

Details of the suspected case were obtained from a private health facility in the state, Yewande Adeshina, Special Adviser to the Governor of Lagos, told a news conference in Ikeja, the state capital.

The top official said history taken revealed that the 40-year old man had no contact with Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) as he did not visit any person with EVD in the hospital and neither did he partake in the burial of any person who died of the disease.

"However, on account of working and living in an endemic region for EVD, and the presentation of non-specific constitutional symptoms and signs of fever, malaise, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea and others associated with EVD, a high index of suspension was raised," Adeshina told reporters.

"Based on this, blood samples were taken to Virology Reference Laboratory, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), on Tuesday. Preliminary results necessitated the confirmation of EVD at a World Health Organization, WHO Reference Laboratory in Dakar, Senegal which is actively in process," she added.

According to her, the patient's condition is considered stale while the health facility had since initiated Universal Safety Precautionary measures to prevent spread of the disease and guaranteed safety of other patients.

The global health body has recorded more than 900 cases of Ebola in the epidemic that has raged across West Africa in recent months, but this is the first suspected case to emerge in Nigeria since the outbreak began.

The Ebola virus, which can incubate for up to 21 days, has a fatality rate of up to 90 percent.

The virus was first discovered in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in Sudan and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, taking its name from the Ebola River where the DRC outbreak was found in a nearby village.

The WHO defines the disease, formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, as "a severe, often fatal illness" and "one of the world's most virulent diseases."

Lagos is the most populous city in Nigeria with a population of about 20 million, and it is also the second fastest-growing city in Africa.