Even stock-market bulls are hemorrhaging from Ebola.

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted more than 450 points during a wild ride on Wednesday, before recouping some of its losses to finish down 173.45 points.

The spread of the deadly virus spooked investors already panicked about growing signs of a global slowdown. A European sell-off spread across the Atlantic, where Wall Street awakened to the news that a second Texas hospital worker had been infected. The Dow fell 374 points soon after the opening bell.

The blue-chip index gyrated during midday trading before taking a dive around 1 p.m., when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the worker flew from Cleveland to Dallas the night before she reported symptoms, potentially exposing 132 other passengers on board the flight.

After the disturbing disclosure, the Dow hit bottom, dropping by as much as 458 points. Airline stocks, in particular, lost altitude. Meanwhile, Lakeland Industries, a hazmat suit maker, closed up 10 percent, and gained 2.5 percent in extended trading.

“The CDC went on the news and then the market sold off again,” said Randy Fredericks, a managing director and trading strategist at Charles Schwab. “These types of things tend to cause people to overreact.”

While only one person in the US has succumbed to Ebola, about 4,500 have died worldwide, mostly in West Africa.

The White House wasn’t able to clear up questions about how the health worker — a nurse, as was the other infected hospital employee — was able to travel or how she had become infected with Ebola.

In other signs that investors were panicked, the VIX, known as the “fear index,” soared as much as 25 percent from the day’s low — the biggest one-day spike since 2011.

The waves of selling started to settle down about an hour before the closing bell, when reports surfaced that Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen had expressed confidence in global growth at a closed-door Washington meeting last weekend.

The Dow ended down 1.06 percent, at 16,141.74. The S&P 500 lost 15.21 points, or 0.81 percent, to close at 1,862.49, while the Nasdaq composite index dropped 11.85, or 0.28 percent, to 4,215.32.