Ebola infects US worker

The Dallas health worker who has become the first person to contract Ebola in the US was wearing protective gear when treating the patient who died of the disease, a hospital official said yesterday.

Officials said the worker, whom they did not name, was in a stable condition.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was still confident that the precautions it had taken would protect workers interacting with patients, said Dr Daniel Varga, its chief clinical officer.

Varga said the infected health worker was wearing protective clothing when attending to the original infected patient, Thomas Eric Duncan.

Duncan, a Liberian who travelled to the US last month, died in the hospital on Wednesday.

US authorities are stepping up efforts to stop the spread of the virus, with medical teams at New York's John F Kennedy Airport beginning the screening of travellers from the three West African countries hardest hit by the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

The Texas hospital worker reported a low-grade fever on Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing, the state health department said.

A preliminary test at the state public health laboratory in Austin was positive, and the diagnosis will be confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," said Dr David Lakey, commissioner of the health service.

The worker is believed to be the first person in the US who has not been to West Africa to test positive for Ebola.

Liberia was the country worst affected by the virus with 2316 victims, followed by Sierra Leone with 930, Guinea with 778, Nigeria with eight and the US with one, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. Some 4033 people are known to have died in seven countries from the outbreak, it said.

The US government has ordered five airports to start screening US-bound travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

John F Kennedy Airport began the screening on Saturday and will be followed on Thursday by four others: Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta.

The UN said on Friday that its appeal for $1-billion (about R11-billion) to respond to the West Africa outbreak was only 25% funded and a surge in trained healthcare personnel was also needed.