Virus fear at Hamburg train station on the high-speed train

A platform at Hamburg Central Station in northern Germany was cordoned off amid fears that a train passenger could be infected with a dangerous virus.

A fire department spokesman told the Bild tabloid that the man and his girlfriend had developed flu-like symptoms on a high-speed train from Frankfurt.

The spokesman said they had traveled from abroad where they had treated a man suffering from an infectious disease, without giving details of the illness.

It was unclear what was wrong with them, but the man, believed to be a medical student, did not have a fever.

The Hamburger Morgenpost website said they arrived in Frankfurt from Rwanda on Wednesday morning.

A team of police and fire departments went to the station and the man and his girlfriend were then taken to a special clinic. Platform four was closed for a while before being allowed to reopen.

The East African country currently fighting an outbreak of the Marburg virusSo far eight people have died in the eruption.

Marburg, which is not airborne, can be transmitted through contact with flying foxes and between people via bodily fluids through unprotected sex and broken skin.

The virus causes fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Marburg virus kills on average half of the people infected.

It was first identified in 1967 when laboratory workers first in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany and then in Serbia became infected with a previously unknown infectious agent.