(Bloomberg) -- A group of American aid workers in Sierra Leone possibly exposed to the Ebola virus will be transported back to the U.S. for monitoring, the Centers for Disease Control said.
While none of the people have tested positive for Ebola, according to the CDC, they represent the largest number of Americans sent home out of concern they may have been exposed to the disease. At least 10 Americans were preparing to be evacuated, the New York Times reported, citing a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.
Some may have come in contact with an American volunteer health-care worker now being treated for Ebola at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, or had similar exposure as that patient, the CDC said in a statement.
Four of the Americans will be sent to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where they will be under quarantine, the hospital said. The others will go to locations near Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and to NIH, where they will be monitored and observe “as appropriate, voluntary self- isolation during the 21-day incubation period,” the CDC said.
On March 12, the health-care worker volunteering in Sierra Leone tested positive for the virus and was flown back to the U.S. He was admitted to the NIH on Friday. The NIH said his condition was serious and didn’t release further details.
The NIH has successfully treated one other patient with Ebola at the same location.
While the Ebola virus has faded from the headlines in the U.S., it continues to ravage parts of West Africa, where total deaths from the disease have surpassed 10,000, according to the World Health Organization. That includes 3,655 in Sierra Leone, where new cases have continued to crop up around the country.
Health-care workers from the U.S. who have contracted Ebola have generally fared well on their return for treatment for the virus, which has no approved cure. Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. They are frequently dehydrated and need intravenous fluids or oral rehydration with solutions that contain electrolytes.