First Ebola Case Diagnosed For The US Confirmed In Dallas Hospital.... Infected Man Came In Contact With Children

By Star Connor | Oct 01, 2014 03:46 PM EDT

MStars News has learned that a patient being treated at a Dallas hospital has tested positive for Ebola, making the deadly disease the first case to be diagnosed in the United States, PEOPLE reported.

The says officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital revealed that the unidentified patient is being kept in isolation and that the hospital is following Centers for Disease Control instructions to keep doctors, staff and patients safe from the disease.

The hospital said one day before that the patients symptoms and recent travel indicated a case of Ebola, the virus has already killed more than 3,000 people across West Africa and infected many traveling Americans.

During a press conference Tuesday, Centers for Disease Control director Tom Frieden shared with the media that the sick man left Liberia on Sept. 19 and returned to the States the next day. Frieden revealed that the man had no signs of sickness when he returned.

Frieden said the man became sick on Sept. 24 and and went to the doctor two days later. The Ebola patient was put into isolation on Sept. 28. As a result, public health workers are now contacting anybody that has came in contact with the unknown man during the four-day gap from when he first started to get ill to when he was placed in isolation. Frieden said that those persons may have been infected with the virus and need to be isolated and monitored for Ebola symptoms for the next 21 days to prevent further spread of the deadly virus.

According to NBCNews, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other officials held a news conference Wednesday and revealed that the first case of Ebola diagnosed man in the United States had contact with "some school-age children."

"The children have been identified and they are being monitored," the governor reported.

Frieden has revealed that the man has been in contact with family members and a few people in the his area. The incubation time frame for Ebola can be from two to 21 days. The death rate is about 50 percent, and there is no known cure right now.

The CDC has tested 12 other people in the United States since July 27, where their results were negative.

Four American aid workers became infected while volunteering in West Africa were recently treated in Atlanta, and Nebraska. On American doctor was exposed to the virus in Sierra Leone. He is currently under observation at the National Institutes of Health.

The United States has only four isolation units, for this kind of case, but the CDC is confident that any hospital can safely provide media care and treatment for someone with Ebola.

The CDC, said Ebola symptoms are as follows: fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding, and can appear as long as 21 days after exposure to the virus.

Jason McDonald, spokesman for the CDC, revealed that health officials use two primary guidelines when making a decision on whether or not to test a person for the Ebola virus.

"The first and foremost determinant is have they traveled to the region [of West Africa]," McDonald said. "The second is whether there's been proximity to family, friends or others who've been exposed."

U.S. health officials have already made preparations for any individual traveler coming to the U.S. that doesn't know that they are infected. Officials are educating hospitals on what infection-control steps they need to take to prevent the virus from spreading in health facilities. People that are traveling on planes through the outbreak zone are checked for fever, but symptoms can begin up to 21 days after exposure. Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms start in the infected persons body, and it takes close contact with bodily fluids to spread.

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