American health care worker contracts Ebola in Africa

A U.S. health care worker has contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone and is being treated at a government health facility in Bethesda, Md., the Centers for Disease Control said Saturday.

Ten other U.S. citizens are being flown to the United States after possible exposure to the lethal disease, the CDC said. They are to enter voluntary isolation near one of the three U.S. centers equipped to treat Ebola, the CDC said.

The infected worker arrived Friday and was admitted to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda.

The others are to be housed for voluntary observation during the 21-day incubation period near the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Neb.; Emory University Hospital in Atlanta; or the NIH center.

The exposure happened in Sierra Leone either through contact with the health care worker being treated at the NIH, or with people that infected the worker, the CDC said.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization reported that the number of deaths from Ebola in West Africa had reached 10,004 and the total number of deaths stood at 24,350.

Despite a sharp decline in new transmissions in the past months due to intensified international aid efforts, the Ebola virus continues to spread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have been devastated by the disease.

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American health care worker contracts Ebola in Africa

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