Clinicians at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha are monitoring an American physician who was potentially exposed to Ebola while treating patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Politico.
Here are four things to know:
1. The physician, whose identity isn't being released due to privacy concerns, was transported to a secure area at the hospital Dec. 29. The patient isn't exhibiting signs of Ebola. If symptoms develop, the patient will be transferred to the hospital's biocontainment unit.
2. "This person may have been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious," Ted Cieslak, MD, an infectious diseases specialist at University of Nebraska Medical Center, said in a press release. "Should any symptoms develop, the Nebraska Medicine/UNMC team is among the most qualified in the world to deal with them."
3. The physician treated a patient at a missionary hospital in the Congo who later tested positive for Ebola. Before being transported to Nebraska Medical Center, the physician received the experimental Ebola vaccine and was under observation for a week. Since Ebola can incubate for three weeks before a person begins exhibiting symptoms, the physician will be monitored at Nebraska Medical Center for up to two weeks, according to the report.
4. This isn't the first time Nebraska Medical Center has monitored Ebola patients. In 2014, the hospital treated three Ebola patients. In 2015, five people were monitored at the hospital after being exposed to the virus, but none of them developed the disease, according to CNN.
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