An American doctor who was reportedly exposed to the Ebola virus while working with patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo arrived in the U.S. Saturday and was taken to a Nebraska hospital.
The physician, who is not identified for privacy reasons, was privately flown to Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday afternoon and transported to University of Nebraska Medical Center, officials with the medical center announced Saturday.
Although the physician had been exposed to Ebola, officials say the doctor is not showing symptoms of the virus and will be monitored in a secure facility for up to two weeks.
The center where the physician is being held has experience treating Ebola patients and has a biocontainment unit to address symptoms if they develop.
“This person may have been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious,” Ted Cieslak, an infectious diseases specialist at the medical center, told Politico. “Should any symptoms develop, the Nebraska Medicine/UNMC team is among the most qualified in the world to deal with them.”
The Ebola virus can spread through direct contact with an animal or human infected with the virus and can take up to three weeks before symptoms start to develop in an infected person, according to a fact-sheet on the virus provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
More than 350 people have died from Ebola in the Congo, which is dealing with the second-largest recorded outbreak of the disease in history.