Healthcare Worker Exposed to the Ebola Virus is Hospitalized at Nebraska Medicine, Omaha

An American healthcare worker exposed to the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone arrived in Omaha Sunday afternoon and is now being monitored at Nebraska Medicine.

Paramedics wearing full-body protective gear took the patient, who has not been identified, by ambulance from a plane that arrived at Eppley Airfield around 1:45 p.m. to the hospital, which has a specialized biocontainment unit, the WOWT NBC Omaha reports.

“I can’t comment on if the patient does or doesn’t have any kind of symptoms at this point, but I can say the crew inside the biocontainment unit, the crew that received the patient at the airport, is treating this patient as if he or she does have the virus, just out of an abundance of caution,”

said Nebraska Medicine spokesman Taylor Wilson.

The Omaha hospital treated three patients with Ebola last fall. Dr. Rick Sacra, who worked at a Liberian hospital, and freelance video journalist Ashoka Mukpo, who also worked in Liberia, both recovered from Ebola after being treated at the hospital. Dr. Martin Salia, who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone, was much more ill when he arrived in Nebraska and he did not survive, reported by ABC News.

Doctors have said early treatment increases the chances of surviving the virus.

Few details have been released about the latest patient. Hospital officials said he or she would have to agree to disclose any information.