The deadly Ebola virus reaches America. Now what?

Health experts are scrambling to track America’s first diagnosed case of Ebola. The patient is a man who traveled from West Africa to Texas 11 days ago.

“A person from Liberia has been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The unidentified man is seriously ill and has been in isolation since Sunday at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

Doctors say he had no symptoms during his trip and didn’t start feeling sick until four or five days after arriving in the United States. They are now searching for his family and friends who may have had close contact with him while he was physically ill.

“That’s what the Dallas Health Department is doing right now, working to detect diseases, that have been exposed, by monitoring them,” said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Dallas Department of Health Services. State of Texas.

Authorities say the man became ill last Wednesday after arriving in Dallas from Liberia. But what is worrying is that he was turned away from an American hospital last Friday. And it wasn’t until his second visit that doctors learned he was from West Africa.

SIM USA, the US ministry whose missionaries contracted Ebola in Liberia, responded to this latest case on Tuesday with the following statement.

“We are sorry to hear about the confirmed case of Ebola in Dallas. This person did exactly the right thing: showed up at a hospital. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people in West Africa have little or no option of using a clinic or hospital to get to the hospital,” said SIM USA President Bruce Johnson.

In the meantime, CBN’s Operation Blessing remains on the ground in Liberia, providing supplies and working with area churches to teach people about prevention and treatment.

It is the largest Ebola outbreak the world has seen, with more than 3,000 people dying in Africa so far.

US troops have broken ground on a field hospital and mobile Ebola laboratories are expected to be operational in Liberia this week.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is assuring Americans that it will prevent the spread of Ebola in the United States.

“I have no doubt that we will end this phenomenon in the United States. But I also have no doubt that – as long as the epidemic continues in Africa – we must be on guard,” Frieden said.

He acknowledges that it was possible that a person who had been in contact with the infected man could contract the Ebola virus in the coming weeks.

“But there’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going to stop this here,” he said.