An American healthcare worker who contracted Ebola while volunteering in a Sierra Leone treatment unit arrived safely at the National Institutes of Health's hospital in Maryland, officials announced early Friday.
The patient's condition was still being evaluated after being flown in isolation from Sierra Leone on a chartered plane and admitted at 4:44 a.m., NIH officials said in a statement. The patient's name, age and gender were not released.
The patient is the 10th person with Ebola to be treated in the U.S. and the second admitted to the NIH Clinical Center. It has one of the few containment facilities nationwide set up to treat Ebola patients.
The center's Special Clinical Studies Unit is staffed by specialists in infectious disease and critical care and is designed to prevent the spread of highly contagious viruses, including Ebola. Previously, an American nurse was treated there after she contracted Ebola while caring for a patient in a Dallas hospital. The nurse, Nina Pham, survived and is Ebola-free.