The Atlanta hospital said it set up in collaboration with the CDC. Ebola patient expected in U.S.

A patient with Ebola disease will be transferred from overseas “within the next several days” to a special isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, bringing the tragedy that has killed hundreds in West Africa to U.S. shores for the first time.

The hospital said in a statement Thursday that the unit, set up in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is designed to treat patients exposed to serious infectious diseases. One of only four such facilities in the country, “it is physically separate from other patient areas and has unique equipment and infrastructure that provide an extraordinarily high level of clinical isolation,” according to the statement.


Two Americans in Liberia have been hospitalized after falling ill with Ebola. The physician and hygienist, both working with the North Carolina-based Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse, have been described as being in grave condition. A CNN report said a medical charter plane took off mid-Thursday afternoon from Georgia en route to that country to evacuate them. A Samaritan’s Purse spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

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More than 1,300 cases of Ebola have been diagnosed in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone since March. With a mortality rate of more than 50 percent, the epidemic is the deadliest ever for the virus.

However, CDC Director Thomas Frieden said Thursday that the outbreak poses “little risk” to the general U.S. population, and health officials “are confident we would not have a spread of Ebola even if we were to have a case here.”

During a media conference call, Frieden also said the agency is warning Americans against any nonessential travel to the three nations affected. The advisory signals a level 3 health threat, CDC’s highest measure.

Frieden detailed steps the CDC is taking to support health officials in those African countries, including helping to strengthen screening at their airports to try to ensure the outbreak does not spread further.

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As part of a CDC “surge,” more than four dozen CDC epidemiologists, disease experts and health communication specialists will fly there within 30 days to establish emergency operation centers and assist surveillance, testing and education efforts, Frieden said.

He described Ebola in stark terms, calling it frightening and a “dreadful and merciless” disease for which there is no proven treatment or vaccine. The bottom line, he warned, is that “Ebola is worsening in West Africa” — and even in the best of circumstances, a true turnaround in the outbreak could take three to six months “or more.”

On Wednesday, the Peace Corps announced it was temporarily removing its 330 volunteers from the three countries. According to some news reports, a spokeswoman for the organization said two volunteers have been quarantined because they’d had contact with an Ebola patient who has since died.