to the US for treatment since the start of the latest Ebola outbreak, which the World Health Organisation estimates has killed more than 3,400 people.

The hospital's biocontainment unit was created in 2005 specifically to handle illnesses like this, Dr Phil Smith, who oversees the unit, said.

"We are ready, willing and able to care for this patient," Smith said. "We consider it our duty to give these American citizens the best possible care we can."

'Counting the minutes'

Mukpo's father, Dr Mitchell Levy, told NBC on Sunday that his son was "counting the minutes" until he could leave Liberia but that he was not feeling that ill on Sunday.

Levy said the family was travelling from Rhode Island to Nebraska.

Doctors at the isolation unit - the largest of four nationwide - wouldevaluate Mukpo when he arrives before determining how to treat him.

The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with bodily fluids - blood, sweat, vomit, faeces, urine, saliva or semen - of an infected person who is showing symptoms.

Doctors said they would apply the lessons learned while treating American aid worker Rick Sacra in September.

Sacra was successfully treated in the Nebraska unit and was allowed to return to his home in Massachusetts after three weeks, on September 25.

"Truly, focusing on symptom management is key with these patients," Dr Rosanna Morris said on Friday.

Sacra received an experimental Tekmira Pharmaceuticals drug called TKM-Ebola, as well as two blood transfusions from another American aid worker who recovered from Ebola at an Atlanta hospital.

The