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Texas Governor Rick Perry addresses the media regarding the first Ebola case diagnosed in the United States at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas on October 1, 2014. Photo: EPA

Ebola spreads to US as airline passenger who flew from Liberia confirmed to have deadly virus

Man was initially sent home with antibiotics; search is on for those who were exposed

Ebola virus

Health officials in the US were last night trying to track down anyone who may have come into contact with the first man to be diagnosed with Ebola in America as it emerged he was first sent home from hospital with antibiotics.

The man flew from Liberia to Texas via Brussels on September 19 but did not seek hospital treatment until six days after arriving in the country.

He was initially sent home from the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas with antibiotics for flu-like symptoms but returned in an ambulance two days later, Edward Goodman, an epidemiologist at the hospital said.

The man, visiting family in the US, was put in isolation when the diagnosis was confirmed. The Liberian government said he had not shown any signs of a fever when he left the country.

The diagnosis is a sign the outbreak of the deadly virus ravaging West Africa may spread globally.

Dr Thomas Frieden, director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said health authorities were taking every step possible to make sure the virus would not spread. He said US hospitals were well prepared to handle Ebola patients and said the virus should not pose the same threat in the US as it did in Africa.

"It is certainly possible someone who had contact with this individual could develop Ebola in the coming weeks," he said. "I have no doubt we will stop this in its tracks in the United States."

Describing the man as "critically ill", Frieden said a handful of people, mostly family members, may have been exposed to the patient and that health authorities were tracking down anyone who might have had contact with him. He said airline passengers who shared a plane with the man were unlikely to have been affected because he had no symptoms during his flight. The three members of the ambulance crew that took the man to hospital tested negative for Ebola.

US authorities did not disclose the flights or airlines the patient took from Liberia.

No airlines serve Africa from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the main gateway to North Texas, and none of the major US carriers with overseas networks flies to Liberia.

This outbreak has killed about 50 per cent of its victims. In past outbreaks, fatality rates have been as high as 90 per cent.

At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola in this latest outbreak - the worst on record - that has been ravaging Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea in West Africa. More than 6,500 cases have been diagnosed, and the CDC has warned that the number of infections could rise to as many as 1.4 million people by early next year without a massive global intervention to contain the virus.

US hospitals have treated and released three aid workers who were infected in Africa and flown back to the US under strict medical supervision.

President Barack Obama discussed the Dallas case with Frieden on Tuesday.

Frieden said that CDC and other health officials were discussing whether to treat the patient with an experimental drug.

Gerald Parker, vice-president for public health preparedness and response at A&M Health Science Centre in Texas, said the Dallas case "underscores that Ebola is a global and national security issue and that we need to double-down on our efforts to help West Africa get this outbreak under control".

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Hospital failed to spot first US Ebola case
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