Ebola in the US: Infected patient named as five children monitored for possible symptoms

The first person to be diagnosed with the Ebola virus outside of Africa since the recent deadly outbreak has been named by Liberian officials as Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man in his mid-40s.

Mr Duncan, who was taken to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas in an ambulance on Sunday, is in a “serious but stable” condition.

Health officials are monitoring the condition of up to 18 people who are understood to have been in contact with the Mr Duncan since his symptoms began developing.

Mr Duncan, who is being treated in an isolated area in the hospital, was rushed to hospital in an ambulance two days later, apparently violently vomiting and finding it difficult to walk.

Five school-aged children are among those who may have been exposed to the virus by Mr Duncan, Texas Governor Rick Perry revealed on Wednesday.

The children, who attended four different schools in Dallas, went to school as normal earlier this week, but have since been pulled.

“Let me assure you, these children have been identified and are being monitored,” Mr Perry said. “This is all hands on deck.”

The children did not show any symptoms of Ebola while at school, which means the “odds of them passing on any sort of virus is very low,” said Dallas’ Independent School District Superintendent Mile Miles.

The children are now being monitored at home. They are part of a group of 18 people understood to be being monitored for a period of 21 days, which also includes the paramedics who transported Mr Duncan to hospital on Sunday.

It is not known when Mr Duncan contracted Ebola, which has now killed 3,000 people across West Africa, but the New York Times reported he had direct contact with a seriously ill woman four days before he left Liberia to visit family in the US.

Mr Duncan is understood to have helped carry the sick daughter of his landlord to hospital along with her mother and brother. Marhalene Williams, 19, was turned away from hospital due to a lack of beds, and the party escorted her home again.

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Mr Duncan helped the family to carry Ms Williams from the car to the taxi. She was seven months pregnant, convulsing, and no longer able to walk. She died the next day.

It is now known that Mr Duncan travelled to Dallas from Liberia via Brussels on 20 September, however, he did not begin to display symptoms until four days later.

Dr Thomas Friedan, the director of the US Centers of Disease Control (CDC) said Mr Duncan would not have been contagious until he began showing symptoms of the deadly virus, and that he did not believe people travelling on the same flights from Liberia to the US are at risk.