MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - US doctors have confirmed the patient hospitalized in the state of Texas has tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement.
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed today, through laboratory tests, the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed in the United States in a person who had traveled to Dallas, Texas from West Africa. The patient did not have symptoms when leaving West Africa, but developed symptoms approximately five days after arriving in the US on September 20," the CDC press statement said Tuesday.
According the press release, CDC is highly concerned with the first Ebola case in the United States and jointly with Texas officials are "taking precautions to identify people who have had close personal contact with the ill person and health care professionals have been reminded to use meticulous infection control at all times."
The current outbreak of Ebola, worst yet, started in southern Guinea at the end of 2013 and consequently spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. A separate outbreak, unrelated to the one in West Africa, is taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
There is no officially approved medication for the Ebola virus as of now, although such countries as Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, are currently working on vaccines.
The death toll in the Ebola epidemic is currently climbing to 3,000. World Health Organization (WHO) projects 20,000 new cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa by November.
