Aid Worker Arrives In Nebraska for Ebola Monitoring

 An American doctor working in West Africa has been transported to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha to be monitored for the possible Ebola virus.

The aid worker had reportedly been treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone when health officials say they experienced a high-risk encounter with the Ebola virus. The patient, whose name has remained confidential, was transported to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha on Sunday evening to undergo observation for the virus.

Testing for the virus in its initial stages can come up negative, even though the virus has in fact entered the patient's body. Media outlets reported members of the Nebraska Medical Center greeting the patient in full biocontainment body suits.

The medical center in Omaha has one of the most extensive quarantine and biocontainment facilities in the nation, and has treated multiple Ebola patients since the disease epidemic, which has killed over 7,800, began back in 2013.

"There will be 21 days of monitoring and if the disease does develop, obviously treatment would begin pretty quickly," Taylor Wilson, a spokesperson for the hospital, told Voice of America news.

Dr. Phil Smith, who leads the hospital's biocontainment unit, added to reporters that "all appropriate precautions" will be taken while monitoring the health worker for Ebola.

German scientists recently suggested that the current, deadly Ebola epidemic began back in 2013, when a two year old boy in a rural village in Guinea was the first recorded victim of the disease. The researchers believe the disease originated from bats, who can serve as carriers of the disease without being infected.