American doctor exposed to Ebola while helping patients in the Congo is monitored for the virus after being flown back to Nebraska hospital
The unnamed physician, 39, shows no symptoms and is being housed in a secure area at The University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha
The Omaha hospital has treated Ebola patients in the past and has a dedicated biocontainment unit
The Democratic Republic of Congo is in the midst of the second largest Ebola outbreak in history
By MICHAEL NAM
DAILYMAIL.COM
30 December 2018
An American who was providing medical assistance in Congo may have been exposed to the deadly Ebola virus and is being monitored at a Nebraska medical center.
The unnamed physician, 39, showed no symptoms of the deadly disease and was transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, according to Politico.
The hospital confirmed Saturday that it was housing the person in a secure area that is not accessible to other patients or the public. Spokesman Taylor Wilson says the person arrived Saturday afternoon.
‘This person may have been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious,’ said Ted Cieslak, M.D., an infectious diseases specialist. ‘Should any symptoms develop, the Nebraska Medicine/UNMC team is among the most qualified in the world to deal with them.’
The medical center is not providing any details to honor the person’s request for privacy. The facility also is not identifying the person as a patient or when the person was in Africa.
Officials say the person is not ill and has no Ebola symptoms but will be monitored for up to two weeks.
The virus can be transmitted between humans through blood, secretions and other bodily fluids of people – and surfaces – that have been infected, but the medical center has a dedicated biocontainment unit and treated three Ebola patients in 2014.
Working at a missionary hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the doctor treated a patient who would test positive for the Ebola virus, Politico reported.
The experimental Ebola vaccine was administered to the doctor as a post-exposure preventive precaution.
Last month, the World Health Organization declared Congo’s deadly Ebola outbreak the second largest in history, behind the devastating West Africa outbreak that killed thousands a few years ago.
The Rest…HERE
