First Ebola case diagnosed in the U.S.

A patient in a hospital in Dallas, Texas is the first individual to be diagnosed with the Ebola virus on American soil, according to the Centre for Disease Control.

Until Tuesday, Ebola patients had only been treated in the U.S. after being diagnosed elsewhere.

According to CDC officials, the unidentified man left Liberia on 19 September and arrived in the United States on 20 September.

At that time, the individual did not have symptoms but began to exhibit them a few days later. The individual was hospitalized and isolated on Sunday at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

The patient is believed to have had a handful of contacts with people after showing symptoms of the virus, and before being isolated. A CDC team was assigned help investigate those contacts.

Officials played down the public health risk, saying that the patient had not shown symptoms when he traveled from Liberia and was therefore not yet contagious to those who shared the flight with him.