Big News Network.com Saturday 14th March, 2015
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - At least 10 US citizens who may have been exposed to the deadly Ebola virus are to be flown home from Sierra Leone for observation, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.
The CDC said they will be transported by non-commercial air transport and will be accommodated near the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, or Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
The CDC added in a statement that all ten of the individuals were free of any symptoms. The news comes following the arrival in the US of an American healthcare worker who contracted Ebola while in Sierra Leone.
She was medevacked to the country on Friday and is being treated at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, where doctors say her condition is serious.
While the virus has killed about 10,000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, only a handful of cases have been seen in the United States, Spain and Britain, mostly due to returning healthcare workers and individuals travelling from West Africa.
CDC spokesman Thomas Skinner said the 10 people being medevacked may have been exposed to the unidentified US Ebola patient or may have had a similar exposure to the virus as the patient.
He said the investigation was continuing and there may be more Americans evacuated from West Africa.
The CDC on Froday sent a team to Sierra Leone to investigate how the healthcare worker became exposed, and determine who might have been in contact with her following exposure.
The CDC said one patient was being sent to Emory University Hospital's special isolation unit, where several Ebola patients have already been treated, while four others are being sent to Nebraska Medical Center, which also has a special isolation unit in case they develop Ebola symptoms.
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