American medical worker exposed to Ebola coming to Nebraska hospital

An American medical worker who was exposed to the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone is scheduled to arrive at a Nebraska hospital for observation Sunday, state health officials said. 

Nebraska Medicine said in a statement early Sunday that the unidentified patient was due to arrive at approximately 2 p.m. local time aboard a private air ambulance. 

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Dr. Phil Smith, medical director of the hospital’s biocontainment unit, where the patient will be monitored, said that the patient was “not ill and not contagious,” adding that hospital staff will take “all appropriate precautions.”

The patient will be observed for possible infection during the 21-day incubation period of the disease, both by monitoring for symptoms and through blood tests.

Three patients with Ebola have already been treated at the facility. Dr. Richard Sacra was treated and released in September. Cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who became infected with the virus while on assignment for NBC, was treated and released the following month. Dr. Martin Sacra died of the virus after less than two days of treatment in November. 

The statement said that the latest patient will be observed in the same room that was used to treat all three prior patients and will be cared for by the same doctors and other members of the biocontainment unit. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.