NEW YORK, October 3 (RIA Novosti) – US health chiefs can prevent Ebola spreading in the country, following the first confirmed case of the virus, Tom Frieden, director of the US Government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
"The bottom line is that we remain confident that we can contain any spread of Ebola in the US," he told journalists in a telephone briefing on Thursday.
"There could be additional cases who are already exposed. If that occurs, systems are in place that they will not further spread Ebola. But doing so requires meticulous and rigorous work and that's the work that's under way now," US official elaborated.
About 100 people were being assessed for exposure to Ebola in Texas on Thursday, following the discovery of the first confirmed case of the virus in the US. Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas on September 30 after travelling to the US on September 24.
"We know that spreading Ebola is possible through physical contact with patients" body fluids, therefore a current intensive effort is to ID anyone who may have had contact and therefore would require monitoring for 21 days after that contact," Frieden concluded.
More than 3,300 people have died in the worst Ebola outbreak in history and the first to have occurred in West Africa. It began in southern Guinea in February and spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The WHO says it could infect some 20,000 people before it is brought under control.
