American flown to Nebraska after possible Ebola exposure

An American health care worker who was giving treatment to patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being checked at a Nebraska health care facility after conceivable introduction to the lethal Ebola infection, deadly Ebola virus, hospital officials said.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha confirmed Saturday that the unidentified individual was being checked in a secure facility not available to the the public or other patients. The individual isn’t sick nor showing any Ebola symptoms, yet could be observed for up to two weeks, officials said.

“This person may have been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious,” said Ted Cieslak, an infectious diseases specialist with Nebraska Medicine and associate professor of epidemiology in the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health. “Should any symptoms develop, the Nebraska Medicine/UNMC team is among the most qualified in the world to deal with them.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo is experiencing one of the deadliest Ebola outbreaks in history. Since August, the Democratic Republic of the Congo health ministry says there have been at least 593 confirmed or suspected cases with Ebola and at least 360 individuals have passed on.

The World Health Organization says an unstable security situation and protests over election delays are hampering health care laborers’ efforts to administer vaccinations and treating patients. The Ebola outbreak in northeastern Congo has been especially hard to contain in light of the fact that it is a functioning battle area.

The Ebola virus isn’t contagious if an individual isn’t showing symptoms, which include fever, severe headache, fatigue, diarrhea and unexplained bleeding, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nebraska Medicine officials said the individual in their care isn’t an official patient, and therefore, the hospital will not provide any updates on the individual’s status except if it esteems essential. On the off chance that the individual creates symptoms of the virus, the individual will be admitted to the hospital’s biocontainment unit, one of the few in the U.S. dedicated to treating highly infectious diseases, Taylor Wilson, a representative for Nebraska Medicine said.

The Nebraska Medical Center treated three patients with Ebola in 2014. In 2015, a few others were checked after exposure, yet none of them developed the disease.