Authorities Confirm First Ebola Case Diagnosed in U.S.

ATLANTA – A patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas tested positive for Ebola, becoming the first person to be diagnosed with the often-deadly virus in the United States, authorities said on Tuesday.

“It is certainly possible that someone who had contact with this individual ... could develop Ebola in the coming weeks,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a press conference in Atlanta.

“But there is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it here,” he said.

The patient traveled to Texas from Liberia, one of the countries hit hardest by the current Ebola outbreak, on Sept. 20 and did not develop any symptoms until five days later, the CDC said.

The other passengers aboard the flight from Liberia are not at risk, Frieden said.

Even so, he said, the CDC will seek to track down anyone who might have been in contact with the patient once he became infectious.

The patient remains in isolation at the hospital in Dallas.

Four U.S. physicians and aid workers who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia have been brought back to the United States. Three have been successfully treated and released. The fourth remains at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital.

Ebola has killed more than 3,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization.