Ebola case in Dallas confirmed
by CDC, first diagnosis in U.S.

Dallas News | September 30, 2014

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital DallasHealth officials say a patient at a Dallas hospital who has tested positive for Ebola arrived in Texas from Liberia earlier this month and showed no symptoms while on the plane.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden said Tuesday that officials "don't believe there is any risk to anyone who was on the flight at that time."

Frieden says the patient came to the U.S. to visit family and arrived on Sept. 20. The patient sought care last Friday and has been hospitalized in isolation since the weekend.

State health officials say no other cases are suspected in Texas.

The patient is the first case of the disease to be diagnosed in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified the media at 3:32 p.m. Tuesday that Dallas has the first diagnosed Ebola case in the nation.

Dallas County went through a day-long anxiety attack Tuesday, waiting to hear if the first Ebola diagnosis in the nation would happen here.

An unnamed patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas was placed in isolation while awaiting test results for the dreaded virus. Apparently, the patient had traveled recently to a West African country, where the disease is spreading, and later developed symptoms that suggested Ebola.

A blood specimen from the patient was sent to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, a testing process that can take 24 to 48 hours to confirm an Ebola infection — or not.

Ebola was first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, outbreaks of Ebola among humans have appeared sporadically in Africa.

County health officials told county commissioners that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is dispatching a team to Dallas in case a patient at a local hospital tests positive for Ebola.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified the media at 3:32 p.m. Tuesday that Dallas has the first diagnosed Ebola case in the nation.