Four laboratory-confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (commonly known as "Ebola") occurred in the United States in 2014. Eleven cases were reported, including these four cases and seven cases medically evacuated from other countries. The first was reported in September 2014. Nine of the people contracted the disease outside the US and traveled into the country, either as regular airline passengers or as medical evacuees; of those nine, two died. Two people contracted Ebola in the United States. Both were nurses who treated an Ebola patient; both recovered.
On September 30, 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that Thomas Eric Duncan, a 45-year-old Liberian national visiting the United States from Liberia, had been diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas, Texas.
Duncan, who had been visiting family in Dallas, was treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. By October 4, his condition had deteriorated from "serious but stable" to "critical". On October 8, he died of Ebola. The other three cases diagnosed in the United States as of October 2014 were:
October 11, 2014, a nurse, Nina Pham, who had provided care to Duncan at the hospital.
October 14, 2014, Amber Joy Vinson, another nurse who treated Duncan.
October 23, 2014, physician Craig Spencer, diagnosed in New York City; he had just returned from working with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, a country in West Africa. He was treated at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.
Hundreds of people were tested or monitored for potential Ebola virus infection, but the two nurses were the only confirmed cases of locally transmitted Ebola. Public health experts and the Obama administration opposed instituting a travel ban on Ebola endemic areas, stating that it would be ineffective and would paradoxically worsen the situation.
No one who contracted Ebola while in the United States died from it. No new cases were diagnosed in the United States after Spencer was released from Bellevue Hospital on November 11, 2014.
