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US Health Worker Quarantined, May Have Been Exposed to Ebola


FILE - Health workers in protective suits transport a surgeon working in Sierra Leone who had been diagnosed with Ebola, at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., Nov. 15, 2014.
FILE - Health workers in protective suits transport a surgeon working in Sierra Leone who had been diagnosed with Ebola, at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., Nov. 15, 2014.

A U.S. health care worker who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus while treating patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo arrived in the United States Saturday and was put in quarantine in Nebraska.

The medic, who is not exhibiting symptoms of Ebola, will remain under observation for up to two weeks at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in Omaha, Nebraska Medicine said in a statement.

The individual’s name was not released for privacy reasons.

Symptoms such as fever and abdominal pain may appear up to three weeks after contact with the deadly virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

FILE - A view of the emergency entrance at the Nebraska Medical Center Biocontainment Unit in Omaha, Neb., Nov. 15, 2014.
FILE - A view of the emergency entrance at the Nebraska Medical Center Biocontainment Unit in Omaha, Neb., Nov. 15, 2014.

Should symptoms develop, the health care worker would be moved to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, one of only a few in the United States for treating infectious diseases.

The Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo is the second worst ever and has killed 356 of the 585 people infected since it began six months ago, according to the World Health Organization.

Nebraska Medicine, a network of hospitals, clinics and health care colleges, together with academic partner UNMC, are among world leaders in the treatment of Ebola, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids and causes hemorrhagic fever with severe vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding.

Nebraska Medicine cared for three patients with the virus in 2014 and monitored several others for exposure during a 2013-16 outbreak in West Africa that was the worst on record, with more than 28,000 cases confirmed.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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