Ebola has traveled to the United States.
A Texas patient who recently traveled to Liberia has the first confirmed case of the deadly disease in the US — and investigators are trying to figure out if he infected others, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.
The patient was diagnosed with the deadly disease at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, where he is being kept in isolation.
“We received in our laboratory today specimens from the individual, tested them and they tested positive for Ebola,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said during a press conference. “The state of Texas also operates a laboratory that found the same results.”
The “critically ill” person arrived in the US from Liberia on Sept. 20, but did not exhibit suspicious symptoms until four or five days later, Frieden said.
On Sept. 26, the patient sought care, but was not placed in isolation at the hospital until two days later.
The patient initially was misdiagnosed by doctors at the hospital, who prescribed antibiotics early Friday and sent him home, according to Dallas’ CBS-TV station.
He became so ill that he returned to the hospital by ambulance Sunday, when health workers learned about his recent travels to Liberia.
Health officials are now looking to “identify all people who may have had contact with the patient while he could’ve been infectious,” Frieden said.
Those people will be isolated and monitored for 21 days, until the incubation period is over.
Health officials insisted that because Ebola can only be transmitted through bodily fluids after symptoms start showing, the virus posed no threat to other passengers on the patient’s airplane.
Frieden also expressed confidence that the disease will be contained in the United States.
“There is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it here,” he said.
President Obama spoke with Frieden on Tuesday and discussed the strict protocols under which the patient is being treated.
Obama and Frieden also talked about the “efforts to trace the patient’s contacts to mitigate the risk of additional cases.”
At this point, health officials do not believe the patient was in Liberia to work with Ebola patients, Frieden said.
Since July 27, 12 other Americans have been tested for the virus, according to the CDC.
Four medical volunteers harboring the virus were brought to the US for treatment — but this is the first time a traveler has been affected. The latest was an American doctor volunteering in Sierra Leone, who was brought to the US National Institutes of Health medical center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Sunday.
At least 3,091 people have perished from Ebola since the outbreak began in West Africa six months ago. So far, no one has contracted the devastating disease in the United States.
Symptoms of Ebola include nausea, fever, muscle pain and bleeding.