By Nancy Gibbs 
 
 Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, says the proverb, but rather the hero’s heart. 
 
 Maybe this is true in any battle; it is surely true of a war that is waged with bleach and a prayer. 
 
 For decades, Ebola haunted rural African villages like some mythic monster that every few years rose to demand a human sacrifice and then returned to its cave. It reached the West only in nightmare form, a Hollywood horror that makes eyes bleed and organs dissolve and doctors despair because they have no cure. 
 
 But 2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic, powered by the very progress that has paved roads and raised cities and lifted millions out of poverty. This time it reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone; it traveled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany and the U.S. It struck doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers, wiping out a public-health infrastructure that was weak in the first place. One August day in Liberia, six pregnant women lost their babies when hospitals couldn’t admit them for complications. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one. 
 
 Which brings us to the hero’s heart. There was little to stop the disease from spreading further. Governments weren’t equipped to respond; the World Health Organization was in denial and snarled in red tape. First responders were accused of crying wolf, even as the danger grew. But the people in the field, the special forces of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse and many others from all over the world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams. 
 
 Ask what drove them and some talk about God; some about country; some about the instinct to run into the fire, not away. “If someone from America comes to help my people, and someone from Uganda,” says Iris Martor, a Liberian nurse, “then why can’t I?” Foday Gallah, an ambulance driver who survived infection, calls his immunity a holy gift. “I want to give my blood so a lot of people can be saved,” he says. “I am going to fight Ebola with all of my might.” 
 
 MSF nurse’s assistant Salome Karwah stayed at the bedsides of patients, bathing and feeding them, even after losing both her parents—who ran a medical clinic—in a single week and surviving Ebola herself. “It looked like God gave me a second chance to help others,” she says. Tiny children watched their families die, and no one could so much as hug them, because hugs could kill. “You see people facing death without their loved ones, only with people in space suits,” says MSF president Dr. Joanne Liu. “You should not die alone with space-suit men.” 
 
 Those who contracted the disease encountered pain like they had never known. “It hurts like they are busting your head with an ax,” Karwah says. One doctor overheard his funeral being planned. Asked if surviving Ebola changed him, Dr. Kent Brantly turns the question around. “I still have the same flaws that I did before,” he says. “But whenever we go through a devastating experience like what I’ve been through, it is an incredible opportunity for redemption of something. We can say, How can I be better now because of what I’ve been through? To not do that is kind of a shame.” 
 
 So that is the next challenge: What will we do with what we’ve learned? This was a test of the world’s ability to respond to potential pandemics, and it did not go well. It exposed corruption in African governments along with complacency in Western capitals and jealousy among competing bureaucrats. It triggered mistrust from Monrovia to Manhattan. Each week brought new puzzles. How do you secure a country, beyond taking passengers’ temperatures at the airport? Who has the power to order citizens to stay home, to post a guard outside their door? What will it take to develop treatments for diseases largely confined to poor nations, even as this Ebola outbreak had taken far more lives by mid-October than all the earlier ones combined? 
 
 The death in Dallas of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed on U.S. soil, and the infection of two nurses who treated him, shook our faith in the ability of U.S. hospitals to handle this kind of disease. From there the road to full freak-out was a short one. An Ohio middle school closed because an employee had flown on the same plane as one of Duncan’s nurses. Not the same flight, just the same plane. A Texas college rejected applicants from Nigeria, since that country had some “confirmed Ebola cases.” A Maine schoolteacher had to take a three-week leave because she went to a teachers’ conference in Dallas. Fear, too, was global. When a nurse in Spain contracted Ebola from a priest, Spanish authorities killed her dog as a precaution, while #VamosAMorirTodos (We’re all going to die) trended on Twitter. Guests at a hotel in Macedonia were trapped in their rooms for days after a British guest got sick and died. Turned out to have nothing to do with Ebola. 
 
 The problem with irrational responses is that they can cloud the need for rational ones. Just when the world needed more medical volunteers, the price of serving soared. When nurse Kaci Hickox, returning from a stint with MSF in Sierra Leone with no symptoms and a negative blood test, was quarantined in a tent in Newark, N.J., by a combustible governor, it forced a reckoning. “It is crazy we are spending so much time having this debate about how to safely monitor people coming back from Ebola-endemic countries,” says Hickox, “when the one thing we can do to protect the population is to stop the outbreak in West Africa.” 
 
 Ebola is a war, and a warning. The global health system is nowhere close to strong enough to keep us safe from infectious disease, and “us” means everyone, not just those in faraway places where this is one threat among many that claim lives every day. The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight. For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year: The Ebola Fighters 
 
 Runner-Up: Ferguson Protesters, The Activists 
 
 Runner-Up: Vladimir Putin, The Imperialist 
 
 Runner-Up: Massoud Barzani, The Opportunist 
 
 Runner-Up: Jack Ma, The Capitalist ||||| Story highlights United Airlines is reaching out to passengers on flights with the patient 
 
 Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, is the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States 
 
 Duncan had a fever, was vomiting when he went to a hospital; he was sent home 
 
 Liberian man was admitted to the same Dallas hospital, isolated days later 
 
 Thomas Eric Duncan left Africa for the United States, by official accounts, a healthy man. But within days after his arrival in Texas, things changed for him, for the worst. 
 
 So who is Duncan, besides the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States ? When did he start to feel sick, and what happened to him next? And who did he come in contact with, in the meantime? 
 
 Who is Thomas Eric Duncan? 
 
 JUST WATCHED Father of quarantined child: 'I'm scared' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Father of quarantined child: 'I'm scared' 02:56 
 
 He is a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, said a friend who knows him well but asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of his case. Duncan's Facebook page indicates that he's from the Liberian capital of Monrovia, where he attended E. Jonathan Goodridge High School. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Mayor: Victim had contact with 20 people Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Mayor: Victim had contact with 20 people 04:15 
 
 Why did he come to the United States? 
 
 To visit family and friends, according to the friend, who noted this was Duncan's first trip to America. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Thomas Frieden has said that Duncan was "staying with family members who live in this country." 
 
 Duncan was visiting his son and his son's mother in Dallas, according to Wilfred Smallwood, Duncan's half-brother. 
 
 When did Duncan leave Liberia? 
 
 He departed the West African nation on September 19, Frieden says. 
 
 How did he get Ebola? 
 
 Authorities haven't said. 
 
 Witnesses say Duncan had been helping Ebola patients in Liberia. Liberian community leader Tugbeh Chieh Tugbeh said Duncan was caring for an Ebola-infected patient at a residence in Paynesville City, just outside Monrovia. 
 
 The New York Times reported Thursday that Duncan had direct contact with a pregnant woman stricken with Ebola on September 15, days before he left for the United States. Citing the woman's parents and Duncan's neighbors in Monrovia, Liberia, the newspaper said Duncan had helped carry the ailing woman home after a hospital turned her away because there wasn't enough space in its Ebola treatment ward. 
 
 A CDC spokesman told CNN on Wednesday that he hadn't seen the newspaper's report and couldn't comment. 
 
 Was he screened for Ebola before getting on the plane? 
 
 Yes, according to Binyah Kesselly, board chairman of the Liberia Airport Authority. 
 
 "The first screening was at the gate, before you get to the parking lot. The second time is before you enter the terminal building and the third is before you board the flight. At every point your temperature is scanned." 
 
 His temperature at those checkpoints was a consistent 97.3 degrees Fahrenheit, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Thomas Frieden told reporters Thursday. 
 
 On a health screening questionnaire, Duncan answered "no" to questions about whether he had cared for a patient with the deadly virus and whether he had touched the body of someone who died in an area affected by the disease, Kesselly said. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Will US ban travel from Ebola hotspots? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Will US ban travel from Ebola hotspots? 04:04 
 
 JUST WATCHED Ebola survivor: Don't give up Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Ebola survivor: Don't give up 00:43 
 
 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Photos: The Ebola epidemic An Ebola survivor participates in a study in Monrovia, Liberia, on June 17. The country launched a five-year study to unravel the mystery of the long-term health effects that plague survivors of the viral disease. Since the epidemic started more than a year ago in a remote village in Guinea, more than 11,000 people have died, the vast majority in three West African nations, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization . And that number is believed to be low, since there was widespread under-reporting of cases, according to WHO. Hide Caption 1 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Women in Monrovia celebrate after the World Health Organization declared Liberia Ebola-free on May 9. Other cases have recurred since, however. Two people in Liberia have died of the disease since the end of June, just weeks after the WHO declared the nation free of the disease. Hide Caption 2 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man walks past an Ebola awareness painting in Monrovia on March 22. Hide Caption 3 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division walk across the tarmac at Campbell Army Airfield before reuniting with their families at a homecoming ceremony March 21 in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 162 soldiers were deployed in Liberia, where they helped fight the spread of Ebola. Hide Caption 4 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Relatives weep for a loved one who it was believed died from Ebola, at a graveyard on the outskirts of Monrovia on March 11. Hide Caption 5 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Doctors Without Borders staffer Alex Eilert Paulsen watches as mattresses and bed frames burn at the Ebola Treatment Unit in Paynesville, Liberia, on January 31. The organization reduced its number of beds from 250 to 30 as gains were made in battling the virus. Hide Caption 6 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Pauline Cafferkey, a Scottish woman diagnosed with Ebola, is put on a plane in Glasgow, Scotland, on December 30, 2014. Cafferkey, a 39-year-old nurse who volunteered in Sierra Leone, was being transported to London for treatment. Hide Caption 7 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A child who survived the Ebola virus is fed by another survivor at a treatment center on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on November 11, 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers in Monrovia cover the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on October 31, 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Kaci Hickox leaves her home in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend on October 30, 2014. Hickox, a nurse, recently returned to the United States from West Africa, where she treated Ebola victims. State authorities wanted her to avoid public places for 21 days -- the virus' incubation period. But Hickox, who twice tested negative for Ebola, said she would defy efforts to keep her quarantined at home. Hide Caption 10 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health officials in Nairobi, Kenya, prepare to screen passengers arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on October 28, 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office of the White House on October 24, 2014. Pham, one of two Dallas nurses diagnosed with the virus, was declared Ebola-free after being treated at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The other nurse, Amber Vinson (not pictured), was treated in Atlanta and also declared Ebola-free. Hide Caption 12 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, transport the body of a person who is suspected to have died of Ebola on October 21, 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers bury a body on the outskirts of Monrovia on October 20, 2014. Hide Caption 14 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Garteh Korkoryah, center, is comforted during a memorial service for her son, Thomas Eric Duncan, on October 18, 2014, in Salisbury, North Carolina. Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, died October 8 in a Dallas hospital. He was in the country to visit his son and his son's mother, and he was the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola. Hide Caption 15 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Boys run from blowing dust as a U.S. military aircraft leaves the construction site of an Ebola treatment center in Tubmanburg, Liberia, on October 15, 2014. Hide Caption 16 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Aid workers from the Liberian Medical Renaissance League stage an Ebola awareness event October 15, 2014, in Monrovia. The group performs street dramas throughout Monrovia to educate the public on Ebola symptoms and how to handle people who are infected with the virus. Hide Caption 17 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Ebola survivors prepare to leave a Doctors Without Borders treatment center after recovering from the virus in Paynesville, Liberia, on October 12, 2014. Hide Caption 18 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man dressed in protective clothing treats the front porch of a Dallas apartment on October 12, 2014. The apartment is home to one of the two nurses who were diagnosed with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national who traveled to Dallas and later died from the virus. Hide Caption 19 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation October 10, 2014, in Monrovia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. Hide Caption 20 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man digs a grave on October 7, 2014, outside an Ebola treatment center near Gbarnga, Liberia. Hide Caption 21 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A person peeks out from the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States, was staying on October 3, 2014. Hide Caption 22 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A girl cries as community activists approach her outside her Monrovia home on October 2, 2014, a day after her mother was taken to an Ebola ward. Hide Caption 23 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health official uses a thermometer September 29, 2014, to screen a Ukrainian crew member on the deck of a cargo ship at the Apapa port in Lagos, Nigeria. Hide Caption 24 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Workers move a building into place as part of a new Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on September 28, 2014. Hide Caption 25 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Medics load an Ebola patient onto a plane at Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport on September 22, 2014. Hide Caption 26 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A few people are seen in Freetown during a three-day nationwide lockdown on September 21, 2014. In an attempt to curb the spread of the Ebola virus, people in Sierra Leone were told to stay in their homes. Hide Caption 27 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Supplies wait to be loaded onto an aircraft at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on September 20, 2014. It was the largest single shipment of aid to the Ebola zone to date, and it was coordinated by the Clinton Global Initiative and other U.S. aid organizations. Hide Caption 28 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A child stops on a Monrovia street September 12, 2014, to look at a man who is suspected of suffering from Ebola. Hide Caption 29 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic After an Ebola case was confirmed in Senegal, people load cars with household items as they prepare to cross into Guinea from the border town of Diaobe, Senegal, on September 3, 2014. Hide Caption 30 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health worker wearing a protective suit conducts an Ebola prevention drill at the port in Monrovia on August 29, 2014. Hide Caption 31 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium in Marshall, Liberia, on August 22, 2014. Hide Caption 32 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Dr. Kent Brantly leaves Emory University Hospital on August 21, 2014, after being declared no longer infectious from the Ebola virus. Brantly was one of two American missionaries brought to Emory for treatment of the deadly virus. Hide Caption 33 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic An Ebola Task Force soldier beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20, 2014. Hide Caption 34 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Local residents gather around a very sick Saah Exco, 10, in a back alley of the West Point slum on August 19, 2014. The boy was one of the patients that was pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients after the facility was overrun and closed by a mob on August 16. A local clinic then refused to treat Saah, according to residents, because of the danger of infection. Although he was never tested for Ebola, Saah's mother and brother died in the holding center. Hide Caption 35 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Workers prepare the new Ebola treatment center on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 36 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum of Monrovia on August 16, 2014. A crowd of several hundred local residents reportedly drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took patients out, saying the Ebola epidemic is a hoax. Hide Caption 37 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health worker disinfects a corpse after a man died in a classroom being used as an Ebola isolation ward August 15, 2014, in Monrovia. Hide Caption 38 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Aid worker Nancy Writebol, wearing a protective suit, gets wheeled on a gurney into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on August 5, 2014. A medical plane flew Writebol from Liberia to the United States after she and her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly were infected with the Ebola virus in the West African country. Hide Caption 39 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Members of Doctors Without Borders adjust tents in the isolation area in Kailahun on July 20, 2014. Hide Caption 40 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Boots dry in the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 20, 2014. Hide Caption 41 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Dr. Jose Rovira of the World Health Organization takes a swab from a suspected Ebola victim in Pendembu, Sierra Leone, on July 18, 2014. Hide Caption 42 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Red Cross volunteers disinfect each other with chlorine after removing the body of an Ebola victim from a house in Pendembu on July 18, 2014. Hide Caption 43 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A scientist separates blood cells from plasma cells to isolate any Ebola RNA and test for the virus April 3, 2014, at the European Mobile Laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea. Hide Caption 44 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health specialists work March 31, 2014, at an isolation ward for patients at the facility in southern Guinea. Hide Caption 45 of 45 
 
 So where did he go next? 
 
 Authorities believe he was on two United Airlines flights -- Flight 951 from Brussels to Washington Dulles and Flight 822 from Washington Dulles to Dallas-Fort Worth -- during his trip, according to a spokesperson for the airline who did not want to be named. Passengers on those flights are not in danger, the spokesperson said. 
 
 The airline is voluntarily reaching out to passengers on those flights, an airline source said. 
 
 When did his Ebola symptoms appear? 
 
 "Four or five days" after his trip, according to the CDC's Frieden. 
 
 This doesn't mean that Duncan actually got infected with Ebola in the United States. The incubation period for the virus is two to 21 days, meaning that a person could be infected with the disease for up to three weeks before he or she show any signs of it. 
 
 When he did seek medical help? 
 
 After 10 p.m. Thursday, September 25. That's when Duncan first walked into Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, according to a statement Wednesday. (A hospital official had earlier said that he'd gone to the hospital Friday.) 
 
 His friend said that Duncan had a fever and vomiting during this first visit to the Dallas hospital. The hospital, in a statement Wednesday, said he had a "low grade fever and abdominal pain." 
 
 He underwent basic blood tests but wasn't screened for Ebola, said Dr. Edward Goodman from the Dallas hospital. Duncan left the medical facility after being given antibiotics and a pain reliever, his friend said. 
 
 "His condition did not warrant admission," the hospital said. "He also was not exhibiting symptoms specific to Ebola." 
 
 Were flags raised that Duncan might have Ebola? 
 
 After being asked by a nurse, Duncan did say that he'd traveled from Africa, said Dr. Mark Lester, executive vice president of Texas Health Presbyterian's parent company. 
 
 But that detail -- which might have raised an alarm that Duncan might have Ebola, since Liberia is one of the countries hardest hit by the virus -- was not "fully communicated" to the medical team, according to Lester. 
 
 When was he admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital? 
 
 On Sunday. 
 
 The friend -- frustrated and feeling hospital staff wasn't doing enough -- then reportedly called the CDC about Duncan's case. The CDC told the friend to call Texas' Department of Health, with the message eventually getting to the hospital. 
 
 This description, however, runs counter to what Texas Health Presbyterian said in its statement Wednesday. By the time Duncan arrived via ambulance, "EMS had already identified potential need for isolation," the hospital said. "The hospital followed all suggested CDC protocols at that time." 
 
 Who did the patient come into contact with in the meantime? 
 
 JUST WATCHED NBC cameraman diagnosed with Ebola Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH NBC cameraman diagnosed with Ebola 01:02 
 
 JUST WATCHED Everything you need to know about Ebola in TX Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Everything you need to know about Ebola in TX 06:58 
 
 JUST WATCHED Dallas mayor: Safety is first priority Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Dallas mayor: Safety is first priority 02:10 
 
 Given the timetable outlined by Frieden, that leaves a few days between when Duncan began to show signs of Ebola and when he was hospitalized. This is significant because someone with Ebola is only contagious when they are symptomatic. And, obviously, there are more safeguards to prevent infection in a medical environment than outside of it. 
 
 Health officials are reaching out to as many as 100 people who may have had contact with Duncan, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of State Health Services said Thursday. These are people who are still being questioned because they may have crossed paths with the patient either at the hospital, at his apartment complex or in the community. 
 
 "Out of an abundance of caution, we're starting with this very wide net, including people who have had even brief encounters with the patient or the patient's home," spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. "The number will drop as we focus in on those whose contact may represent a potential risk of infection." 
 
 The number of direct contacts who have been identified and are being monitored right now is "more than 12," a federal official told CNN on Thursday. "By the end of the day, we should have a pretty good idea of how many contacts there are," the official said. 
 
 That number includes five students who attended four different schools in the area, according to Dallas Superintendent Mike Miles. 
 
 Three students were also pulled from an elementary school in the Richardson Independent School District on Thursday after health officials determined they may have been in contact with Duncan. 
 
 They have no symptoms, but "have been removed from school in order to be monitored," the school district said. 
 
 It's not known yet whether they or anyone else got Ebola, which only spreads through contact with infected bodily fluids, because of Duncan. This includes members of the ambulance crew that transported him to the hospital; none of had shown symptoms, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said Tuesday. 
 
 How is Duncan doing? 
 
 "All right," according to his friend, who has spoken with Duncan frequently. "He is in pain." 
 
 The friend, who talked with Duncan as recently as Wednesday afternoon, said that Duncan hasn't eaten in a week. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital spokeswoman Candace White said that Duncan is in serious condition at her Dallas hospital. ||||| Story highlights Untested drugs can't be used in the midst of an outbreak, spokesman says 
 
 Ebola drug ZMapp given to Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol 
 
 Experimental drug had only been tested in monkeys 
 
 On Thursday, Dr. Kent Brantly thought he was going to die. 
 
 It was the ninth day since the American missionary worker came down sick with Ebola in Liberia. 
 
 His condition worsening by the minute, Brantly called his wife to say goodbye. 
 
 Thankfully, the call was premature. 
 
 Brantly is back on his feet -- literally -- after receiving a last-ditch, highly experimental drug. Another American missionary with Ebola got the same. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Treatment for Ebola patients Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Treatment for Ebola patients 02:51 
 
 JUST WATCHED World Bank commits to fighting Ebola Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH World Bank commits to fighting Ebola 01:27 
 
 JUST WATCHED Timeline of Ebola patient's U.S. return Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Timeline of Ebola patient's U.S. return 02:11 
 
 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Photos: The Ebola epidemic An Ebola survivor participates in a study in Monrovia, Liberia, on June 17. The country launched a five-year study to unravel the mystery of the long-term health effects that plague survivors of the viral disease. Since the epidemic started more than a year ago in a remote village in Guinea, more than 11,000 people have died, the vast majority in three West African nations, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization . And that number is believed to be low, since there was widespread under-reporting of cases, according to WHO. Hide Caption 1 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Women in Monrovia celebrate after the World Health Organization declared Liberia Ebola-free on May 9. Other cases have recurred since, however. Two people in Liberia have died of the disease since the end of June, just weeks after the WHO declared the nation free of the disease. Hide Caption 2 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man walks past an Ebola awareness painting in Monrovia on March 22. Hide Caption 3 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division walk across the tarmac at Campbell Army Airfield before reuniting with their families at a homecoming ceremony March 21 in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 162 soldiers were deployed in Liberia, where they helped fight the spread of Ebola. Hide Caption 4 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Relatives weep for a loved one who it was believed died from Ebola, at a graveyard on the outskirts of Monrovia on March 11. Hide Caption 5 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Doctors Without Borders staffer Alex Eilert Paulsen watches as mattresses and bed frames burn at the Ebola Treatment Unit in Paynesville, Liberia, on January 31. The organization reduced its number of beds from 250 to 30 as gains were made in battling the virus. Hide Caption 6 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Pauline Cafferkey, a Scottish woman diagnosed with Ebola, is put on a plane in Glasgow, Scotland, on December 30, 2014. Cafferkey, a 39-year-old nurse who volunteered in Sierra Leone, was being transported to London for treatment. Hide Caption 7 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A child who survived the Ebola virus is fed by another survivor at a treatment center on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on November 11, 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers in Monrovia cover the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on October 31, 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Kaci Hickox leaves her home in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend on October 30, 2014. Hickox, a nurse, recently returned to the United States from West Africa, where she treated Ebola victims. State authorities wanted her to avoid public places for 21 days -- the virus' incubation period. But Hickox, who twice tested negative for Ebola, said she would defy efforts to keep her quarantined at home. Hide Caption 10 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health officials in Nairobi, Kenya, prepare to screen passengers arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on October 28, 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office of the White House on October 24, 2014. Pham, one of two Dallas nurses diagnosed with the virus, was declared Ebola-free after being treated at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The other nurse, Amber Vinson (not pictured), was treated in Atlanta and also declared Ebola-free. Hide Caption 12 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, transport the body of a person who is suspected to have died of Ebola on October 21, 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers bury a body on the outskirts of Monrovia on October 20, 2014. Hide Caption 14 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Garteh Korkoryah, center, is comforted during a memorial service for her son, Thomas Eric Duncan, on October 18, 2014, in Salisbury, North Carolina. Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, died October 8 in a Dallas hospital. He was in the country to visit his son and his son's mother, and he was the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola. Hide Caption 15 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Boys run from blowing dust as a U.S. military aircraft leaves the construction site of an Ebola treatment center in Tubmanburg, Liberia, on October 15, 2014. Hide Caption 16 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Aid workers from the Liberian Medical Renaissance League stage an Ebola awareness event October 15, 2014, in Monrovia. The group performs street dramas throughout Monrovia to educate the public on Ebola symptoms and how to handle people who are infected with the virus. Hide Caption 17 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Ebola survivors prepare to leave a Doctors Without Borders treatment center after recovering from the virus in Paynesville, Liberia, on October 12, 2014. Hide Caption 18 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man dressed in protective clothing treats the front porch of a Dallas apartment on October 12, 2014. The apartment is home to one of the two nurses who were diagnosed with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national who traveled to Dallas and later died from the virus. Hide Caption 19 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation October 10, 2014, in Monrovia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. Hide Caption 20 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man digs a grave on October 7, 2014, outside an Ebola treatment center near Gbarnga, Liberia. Hide Caption 21 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A person peeks out from the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States, was staying on October 3, 2014. Hide Caption 22 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A girl cries as community activists approach her outside her Monrovia home on October 2, 2014, a day after her mother was taken to an Ebola ward. Hide Caption 23 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health official uses a thermometer September 29, 2014, to screen a Ukrainian crew member on the deck of a cargo ship at the Apapa port in Lagos, Nigeria. Hide Caption 24 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Workers move a building into place as part of a new Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on September 28, 2014. Hide Caption 25 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Medics load an Ebola patient onto a plane at Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport on September 22, 2014. Hide Caption 26 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A few people are seen in Freetown during a three-day nationwide lockdown on September 21, 2014. In an attempt to curb the spread of the Ebola virus, people in Sierra Leone were told to stay in their homes. Hide Caption 27 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Supplies wait to be loaded onto an aircraft at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on September 20, 2014. It was the largest single shipment of aid to the Ebola zone to date, and it was coordinated by the Clinton Global Initiative and other U.S. aid organizations. Hide Caption 28 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A child stops on a Monrovia street September 12, 2014, to look at a man who is suspected of suffering from Ebola. Hide Caption 29 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic After an Ebola case was confirmed in Senegal, people load cars with household items as they prepare to cross into Guinea from the border town of Diaobe, Senegal, on September 3, 2014. Hide Caption 30 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health worker wearing a protective suit conducts an Ebola prevention drill at the port in Monrovia on August 29, 2014. Hide Caption 31 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium in Marshall, Liberia, on August 22, 2014. Hide Caption 32 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Dr. Kent Brantly leaves Emory University Hospital on August 21, 2014, after being declared no longer infectious from the Ebola virus. Brantly was one of two American missionaries brought to Emory for treatment of the deadly virus. Hide Caption 33 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic An Ebola Task Force soldier beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20, 2014. Hide Caption 34 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Local residents gather around a very sick Saah Exco, 10, in a back alley of the West Point slum on August 19, 2014. The boy was one of the patients that was pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients after the facility was overrun and closed by a mob on August 16. A local clinic then refused to treat Saah, according to residents, because of the danger of infection. Although he was never tested for Ebola, Saah's mother and brother died in the holding center. Hide Caption 35 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Workers prepare the new Ebola treatment center on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 36 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum of Monrovia on August 16, 2014. A crowd of several hundred local residents reportedly drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took patients out, saying the Ebola epidemic is a hoax. Hide Caption 37 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health worker disinfects a corpse after a man died in a classroom being used as an Ebola isolation ward August 15, 2014, in Monrovia. Hide Caption 38 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Aid worker Nancy Writebol, wearing a protective suit, gets wheeled on a gurney into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on August 5, 2014. A medical plane flew Writebol from Liberia to the United States after she and her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly were infected with the Ebola virus in the West African country. Hide Caption 39 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Members of Doctors Without Borders adjust tents in the isolation area in Kailahun on July 20, 2014. Hide Caption 40 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Boots dry in the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 20, 2014. Hide Caption 41 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Dr. Jose Rovira of the World Health Organization takes a swab from a suspected Ebola victim in Pendembu, Sierra Leone, on July 18, 2014. Hide Caption 42 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Red Cross volunteers disinfect each other with chlorine after removing the body of an Ebola victim from a house in Pendembu on July 18, 2014. Hide Caption 43 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A scientist separates blood cells from plasma cells to isolate any Ebola RNA and test for the virus April 3, 2014, at the European Mobile Laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea. Hide Caption 44 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health specialists work March 31, 2014, at an isolation ward for patients at the facility in southern Guinea. Hide Caption 45 of 45 
 
 Brantly's and Nancy Writebol's conditions significantly improved after receiving the medication, sources say. Brantly was able to walk into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after being evacuated to the United States last week, and Writebol is expected to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday. 
 
 On July 22, Brantly woke up feeling feverish. Fearing the worst, Brantly immediately isolated himself. Writebol's symptoms started three days later. A rapid field blood test confirmed the infection in both of them after they had become ill with fever, vomiting and diarrhea. 
 
 It's believed Brantly and Writebol, who worked with the aid organization Samaritan's Purse, contracted Ebola from another health care worker at their hospital in Liberia, although the official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case investigation has yet to be released. 
 
 The experimental drug, known as ZMapp, was developed by the biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., which is based in San Diego. The patients were told that the treatment had never been tried before in a human being but had shown promise in small experiments with monkeys. 
 
 JUST WATCHED How the experimental Ebola serum works Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH How the experimental Ebola serum works 02:32 
 
 According to company documents, four monkeys infected with Ebola survived after being given the therapy within 24 hours after infection. Two of four other monkeys that started therapy within 48 hours after infection also survived. One monkey that was not treated died within five days of exposure to the virus. 
 
 Brantly and Writebol were aware of the risk of taking a new, little-understood treatment and gave informed consent, according to two sources familiar with the care of the missionary workers. In the monkeys, the experimental serum had been given within 48 hours of infection. Brantly didn't receive it until he'd been sick for nine days. 
 
 The medicine is a three-mouse monoclonal antibody, meaning that mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus and then the antibodies generated within the mice's blood were harvested to create the medicine. It works by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells. 
 
 The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding. 
 
 Early symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. They later progress to vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function -- and sometimes internal and external bleeding. 
 
 Map: The Ebola outbreak 
 
 The ZMapp vials, stored at subzero temperatures, reached the hospital in Liberia where Brantly and Writebol were being treated Thursday morning. Doctors were instructed to allow the serum to thaw naturally without any additional heat. It was expected that it would be eight to 10 hours before the medicine could be given, according to a source familiar with the process. 
 
 Brantly asked that Writebol be given the first dose because he was younger and he thought he had a better chance of fighting it, and she agreed. However, as the first vial was still thawing, Brantly's condition took a sudden turn for the worse. 
 
 Brantly began to deteriorate and developed labored breathing. He told his doctors he thought he was dying, according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation. 
 
 Knowing his dose was still frozen, Brantly asked if he could have Writebol's now-thawed medication. It was brought to his room and administered through an IV. Within an hour of receiving the medication, Brantly's condition dramatically improved. He began breathing easier; the rash over his trunk faded away. One of his doctors described the events as "miraculous." 
 
 By the next morning, Brantly was able to take a shower on his own before getting on a specially designed Gulfstream air ambulance jet to be evacuated to the United States. 
 
 Writebol also received a vial of the medication. Her response was not as remarkable, according to sources familiar with the treatment. However, doctors on Sunday administered Writebol a second dose of the medication, which resulted in significant improvement. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Why isn't there an Ebola vaccine? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Why isn't there an Ebola vaccine? 02:31 
 
 JUST WATCHED Second Ebola patient heading to U.S. Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Second Ebola patient heading to U.S. 01:57 
 
 JUST WATCHED Doctors struggle to treat Ebola patients Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Doctors struggle to treat Ebola patients 04:37 
 
 She was stable enough to be evacuated back to the United States. 
 
 The process by which the medication was made available to Brantly and Writebol is highly unusual. 
 
 World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl cautioned that health authorities "cannot start using untested drugs in the middle of an outbreak, for various reasons." 
 
 Doctors Without Borders similarly weighed in on the side of caution. 
 
 "It is important to keep in mind that a large-scale provision of treatments and vaccines that are in very early stages of development has a series of scientific and ethical implications," the organization said in a statement. 
 
 "As doctors, trying an untested drug on patients is a very difficult choice since our first priority is to do no harm, and we would not be sure that the experimental treatment would do more harm than good." 
 
 ZMapp has not been approved for human use and has not even gone through the clinical trial process, which is standard to prove the safety and efficacy of a medication. It may have been given under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "compassionate use" regulation, which allows access to investigational drugs outside clinical trials. 
 
 Getting approval for compassionate use is often long and laborious, but in the case of Brantly and Writebol, they received the medication within seven to 10 days of their exposure to the Ebola virus. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
 Twitter 
 
 Embed Dallas Nurse With Ebola Had Low-Grade Fever on Commercial Flight 2:30 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog 
 
 The latest Dallas nurse to contract Ebola boarded a plane in Cleveland two days ago with a slight fever and should not have flown, federal health officials said Wednesday. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters that the nurse had a temperature of 99.5 degrees before she got on the plane on Monday. 
 
 Because of that reading, and because she had treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States, the nurse should not have been on the plane, he said. 
 
 “She should not have traveled on a commercial airline,” Frieden said. 
 
 Authorities in Cleveland identified the nurse as Amber Vinson. Frieden said she was ill but clinically stable. She was to be flown later Wednesday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, one of the country’s top hospitals equipped to handle Ebola. 
 
 Federal health officials were trying to track down and interview all 132 people on the flight, Frontier Airlines Flight 1143. Still, Frieden said that there was “an extremely low likelihood” that anyone on the flight was exposed to Ebola. 
 
 “She did not vomit. She was not bleeding,” Frieden said. “So the level of risk of people around her should be extremely low.” 
 
 Vinson is the second to test positive for Ebola after treating Duncan. Authorities announced the first positive test on Sunday, a day before the second worker returned to Dallas from Cleveland. She had flown to Cleveland on Oct. 8, according to health officials in Cleveland. 
 
 Frieden said that the nurse had had “extensive contact” with Duncan, including while he was vomiting and had diarrhea. Duncan contracted the virus in Liberia and flew to Dallas in September. He died earlier this month. 
 
 Frieden said an investigation had found that some workers at the Dallas hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian, layered some of their protective gear and taped their gloves to their hands, both of which can increase the risk of contracting the virus. 
 
 Emory University Hospital treated two other Americans, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, earlier in the outbreak. They recovered and were later released. It is treating another Ebola patient who arrived Sept. 9 and has not been publicly identified. 
 
 — Erin McClam ||||| Story highlights Ebola has killed 961 people from the start of the outbreak this year 
 
 U.N. health agency: "A coordinated international response is deemed essential" 
 
 Doctors Without Borders applauds designation but says "statements won't save lives" 
 
 Global health experts on Friday declared the Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa an international health emergency that requires a coordinated global approach. 
 
 Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are battling the Ebola virus, which has also spread to Nigeria. The virus has killed 961 people from the start of the outbreak this year through Wednesday, the World Health Organization said. 
 
 "The possible consequences of further international spread are particularly serious in view of the virulence of the virus, the intensive community and health facility transmission patterns, and the weak health systems in the currently affected and most at-risk countries," WHO said Friday after two days of emergency meetings. 
 
 The U.N. health agency described it as the worst outbreak in the four-decade history of tracking the disease. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Initial Ebola response a 'failure' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Initial Ebola response a 'failure' 04:49 
 
 "A coordinated international response is deemed essential to stop and reverse the international spread of Ebola," WHO said. 
 
 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic An Ebola survivor participates in a study in Monrovia, Liberia, on June 17. The country launched a five-year study to unravel the mystery of the long-term health effects that plague survivors of the viral disease. Since the epidemic started more than a year ago in a remote village in Guinea, more than 11,000 people have died, the vast majority in three West African nations, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization . And that number is believed to be low, since there was widespread under-reporting of cases, according to WHO. Hide Caption 1 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Women in Monrovia celebrate after the World Health Organization declared Liberia Ebola-free on May 9. Other cases have recurred since, however. Two people in Liberia have died of the disease since the end of June, just weeks after the WHO declared the nation free of the disease. Hide Caption 2 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A man walks past an Ebola awareness painting in Monrovia on March 22. Hide Caption 3 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division walk across the tarmac at Campbell Army Airfield before reuniting with their families at a homecoming ceremony March 21 in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 162 soldiers were deployed in Liberia, where they helped fight the spread of Ebola. Hide Caption 4 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Relatives weep for a loved one who it was believed died from Ebola, at a graveyard on the outskirts of Monrovia on March 11. Hide Caption 5 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Doctors Without Borders staffer Alex Eilert Paulsen watches as mattresses and bed frames burn at the Ebola Treatment Unit in Paynesville, Liberia, on January 31. The organization reduced its number of beds from 250 to 30 as gains were made in battling the virus. Hide Caption 6 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Pauline Cafferkey, a Scottish woman diagnosed with Ebola, is put on a plane in Glasgow, Scotland, on December 30, 2014. Cafferkey, a 39-year-old nurse who volunteered in Sierra Leone, was being transported to London for treatment. Hide Caption 7 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A child who survived the Ebola virus is fed by another survivor at a treatment center on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on November 11, 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers in Monrovia cover the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on October 31, 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Kaci Hickox leaves her home in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend on October 30, 2014. Hickox, a nurse, recently returned to the United States from West Africa, where she treated Ebola victims. State authorities wanted her to avoid public places for 21 days -- the virus' incubation period. But Hickox, who twice tested negative for Ebola, said she would defy efforts to keep her quarantined at home. Hide Caption 10 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Health officials in Nairobi, Kenya, prepare to screen passengers arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on October 28, 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office of the White House on October 24, 2014. Pham, one of two Dallas nurses diagnosed with the virus, was declared Ebola-free after being treated at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The other nurse, Amber Vinson (not pictured), was treated in Atlanta and also declared Ebola-free. Hide Caption 12 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, transport the body of a person who is suspected to have died of Ebola on October 21, 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers bury a body on the outskirts of Monrovia on October 20, 2014. Hide Caption 14 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Garteh Korkoryah, center, is comforted during a memorial service for her son, Thomas Eric Duncan, on October 18, 2014, in Salisbury, North Carolina. Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, died October 8 in a Dallas hospital. He was in the country to visit his son and his son's mother, and he was the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola. Hide Caption 15 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Boys run from blowing dust as a U.S. military aircraft leaves the construction site of an Ebola treatment center in Tubmanburg, Liberia, on October 15, 2014. Hide Caption 16 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Aid workers from the Liberian Medical Renaissance League stage an Ebola awareness event October 15, 2014, in Monrovia. The group performs street dramas throughout Monrovia to educate the public on Ebola symptoms and how to handle people who are infected with the virus. Hide Caption 17 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Ebola survivors prepare to leave a Doctors Without Borders treatment center after recovering from the virus in Paynesville, Liberia, on October 12, 2014. Hide Caption 18 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A man dressed in protective clothing treats the front porch of a Dallas apartment on October 12, 2014. The apartment is home to one of the two nurses who were diagnosed with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national who traveled to Dallas and later died from the virus. Hide Caption 19 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation October 10, 2014, in Monrovia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. Hide Caption 20 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A man digs a grave on October 7, 2014, outside an Ebola treatment center near Gbarnga, Liberia. Hide Caption 21 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A person peeks out from the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States, was staying on October 3, 2014. Hide Caption 22 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A girl cries as community activists approach her outside her Monrovia home on October 2, 2014, a day after her mother was taken to an Ebola ward. Hide Caption 23 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A health official uses a thermometer September 29, 2014, to screen a Ukrainian crew member on the deck of a cargo ship at the Apapa port in Lagos, Nigeria. Hide Caption 24 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Workers move a building into place as part of a new Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on September 28, 2014. Hide Caption 25 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Medics load an Ebola patient onto a plane at Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport on September 22, 2014. Hide Caption 26 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A few people are seen in Freetown during a three-day nationwide lockdown on September 21, 2014. In an attempt to curb the spread of the Ebola virus, people in Sierra Leone were told to stay in their homes. Hide Caption 27 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Supplies wait to be loaded onto an aircraft at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on September 20, 2014. It was the largest single shipment of aid to the Ebola zone to date, and it was coordinated by the Clinton Global Initiative and other U.S. aid organizations. Hide Caption 28 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A child stops on a Monrovia street September 12, 2014, to look at a man who is suspected of suffering from Ebola. Hide Caption 29 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic After an Ebola case was confirmed in Senegal, people load cars with household items as they prepare to cross into Guinea from the border town of Diaobe, Senegal, on September 3, 2014. Hide Caption 30 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A health worker wearing a protective suit conducts an Ebola prevention drill at the port in Monrovia on August 29, 2014. Hide Caption 31 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium in Marshall, Liberia, on August 22, 2014. Hide Caption 32 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Dr. Kent Brantly leaves Emory University Hospital on August 21, 2014, after being declared no longer infectious from the Ebola virus. Brantly was one of two American missionaries brought to Emory for treatment of the deadly virus. Hide Caption 33 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic An Ebola Task Force soldier beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20, 2014. Hide Caption 34 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Local residents gather around a very sick Saah Exco, 10, in a back alley of the West Point slum on August 19, 2014. The boy was one of the patients that was pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients after the facility was overrun and closed by a mob on August 16. A local clinic then refused to treat Saah, according to residents, because of the danger of infection. Although he was never tested for Ebola, Saah's mother and brother died in the holding center. Hide Caption 35 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Workers prepare the new Ebola treatment center on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 36 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum of Monrovia on August 16, 2014. A crowd of several hundred local residents reportedly drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took patients out, saying the Ebola epidemic is a hoax. Hide Caption 37 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A health worker disinfects a corpse after a man died in a classroom being used as an Ebola isolation ward August 15, 2014, in Monrovia. Hide Caption 38 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Aid worker Nancy Writebol, wearing a protective suit, gets wheeled on a gurney into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on August 5, 2014. A medical plane flew Writebol from Liberia to the United States after she and her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly were infected with the Ebola virus in the West African country. Hide Caption 39 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Members of Doctors Without Borders adjust tents in the isolation area in Kailahun on July 20, 2014. Hide Caption 40 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Boots dry in the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 20, 2014. Hide Caption 41 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Dr. Jose Rovira of the World Health Organization takes a swab from a suspected Ebola victim in Pendembu, Sierra Leone, on July 18, 2014. Hide Caption 42 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Red Cross volunteers disinfect each other with chlorine after removing the body of an Ebola victim from a house in Pendembu on July 18, 2014. Hide Caption 43 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic A scientist separates blood cells from plasma cells to isolate any Ebola RNA and test for the virus April 3, 2014, at the European Mobile Laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea. Hide Caption 44 of 45 45 photos: The Ebola epidemic Health specialists work March 31, 2014, at an isolation ward for patients at the facility in southern Guinea. Hide Caption 45 of 45 
 
 JUST WATCHED Why Ebola drug isn't available in Africa Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Why Ebola drug isn't available in Africa 02:15 
 
 JUST WATCHED Step inside CDC's Ebola war room Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Step inside CDC's Ebola war room 02:48 
 
 Ebola virus: 9 things to know about the killer disease 
 
 Medical aid groups applauded the designation but said that it alone won't reduce fatalities. 
 
 "Declaring Ebola an international public health emergency shows how seriously WHO is taking the current outbreak, but statements won't save lives," said Dr. Bart Janssens, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian organization. 
 
 "Now we need this statement to translate into immediate action on the ground. For weeks, MSF has been repeating that a massive medical, epidemiological and public health response is desperately needed to save lives and reverse the course of the epidemic," said Janssens, using the initials for his organization's French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres. 
 
 "Lives are being lost because the response is too slow." 
 
 The agency said it has nearly 700 staff responding to the crisis in the affected countries. "All our Ebola experts are mobilized, we simply cannot do more," Janseens said. 
 
 American patients improving 
 
 Two Americans who contracted Ebola while supporting efforts to fight the disease in Liberia are showing improvement at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Dr. Kent Brantly and aid worker Nancy Writebol are getting treatment at one of four U.S. institutions capable of providing such treatment. 
 
 WHO warns of bogus information 
 
 Meanwhile, a WHO official said bogus information is adding to the rapid spread of the disease. 
 
 "Perhaps one of the most important factors contributing to this is fear and misinformation," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director for health security. 
 
 "This is critical to understand, because what it is doing is that it helps foster suspicion and anxiety in communities, and when that happens we see a situation where people are reluctant to go to health facilities or maybe reluctant to bring their family members there." 
 
 Though infectious, Ebola "is not mysterious" and can be contained, Fukuda said. 
 
 Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said the fast-spreading disease has overwhelmed her nation's health care system. 
 
 "The scope and scale of the epidemic ... now exceed the capacity and statutory responsibility of any one government agency or ministry," she said. 
 
 The Liberian leader declared a 90-day state of emergency this week, which will allow her government to set up a series of measures to prevent the spread of the disease. 
 
 Map: Ebola outbreak 
 
 JUST WATCHED How an Ebola outbreak can start, and end Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH How an Ebola outbreak can start, and end 02:09 
 
 JUST WATCHED The facts about Ebola Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH The facts about Ebola 03:44 
 
 9 questions about this new Ebola drug 
 
 While Liberia struggles to contain the epidemic, the United States ordered relatives of its embassy employees to leave the country. The U.S. Embassy is in the capital of Monrovia, one of the areas hardest-hit by the epidemic. 
 
 Washington said it's sending experts to Liberia, including 12 specialists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a 13-member disaster assistance response team from the U.S. Agency for International Development. 
 
 Ebola is here: 5 reasons not to panic 
 
 The Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever that affects multiple organ systems in the body. 
 
 Early symptoms include weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. They later progress to vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function -- and sometimes internal and external bleeding. 
 
 Ebola spreads through contact with organs and bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and other secretions of infected people. It has no known cure. The most common treatment requires supporting organ functions and maintaining bodily fluids such as blood and water long enough for the body to fight off the infection. 
 
 What's the risk of catching Ebola on a plane? ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 DALLAS — At least one chapter of the Ebola saga neared a close Sunday, as most of the dozens of people who had direct or indirect contact here with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola, had been told by officials that they were no longer at risk of contracting the disease. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mr. Duncan’s fiancée, Louise Troh, who nursed him in their cramped apartment while he suffered from diarrhea and who was put under state-ordered quarantine, was set to be declared Ebola-free by officials at the end of Sunday. So, too, were the paramedics who drove an ailing Mr. Duncan to a hospital and health care workers who drew or processed his blood. And a mandatory quarantine was lifted for a homeless man who later rode in the same ambulance as Mr. Duncan before it was disinfected. 
 
 The 21-day monitoring period ended Sunday and Monday for nearly all the roughly 50 people. It concluded as federal health officials were tightening the guidelines for the protective gear worn by health care workers treating Ebola patients. 
 
 Two nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who treated Mr. Duncan — Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson — have contracted Ebola. Although officials have not determined how the nurses became infected, they have focused on the women’s use of personal protective gear. 
 
 In an appearance on Sunday on the news talk show “Meet the Press,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said new federal guidelines for hospitals would be issued requiring personal protective equipment that completely covers the skin. He said the previous recommendations had been based on a World Health Organization protocol designed for treating people in Africa and not for American hospital settings. 
 
 “It became clear that we needed to modify that protocol where no part of the body is exposed,” Dr. Fauci said. 
 
 At the Pentagon, officials announced that they were forming a 30-person military medical team to respond to any additional Ebola cases in the United States and “provide short-notice assistance to civilian medical professionals.” 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Continue reading the main story When Did Ebola Arrive and Spread at a Dallas Hospital? Timelines of the three people in Dallas who have been diagnosed with Ebola. Full Q. and A. » Thomas Eric Duncan Nina Pham Amber Joy Vinson Sept. 20 Arrives in Dallas from Liberia 24 Develops symptoms. Sept. 28-30 High risk period when Pham and Vinson were treating Duncan. 30 Ebola test confirmed. Oct. 8 Dies. Oct. 10 Flies to Cleveland. Oct. 11 Ebola test confirmed. 13 Flies back to Dallas. 15 Ebola test confirmed. High risk period when Pham and Vinson were treating Duncan. Thomas Eric Duncan Fri. Sat. Nina Pham Sept. 19 20 Amber Joy Vinson Leaves Liberia. Arrives in Dallas. Sun. Mon. Tue. Wed. Thu. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Develops symptoms. Visits hospital. 28 29 30 Oct. 1 2 3 4 Returns to hospital. Ebola test confirmed. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Flies to Cleveland. Ebola test confirmed. Dies. 12 13 14 15 Flies back to Dallas. Ebola test confirmed. 
 
 Relatives of Ms. Vinson, one of the nurses treated, said in a statement Sunday that she had been cleared to travel by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before her Oct. 10 flight from Dallas to Cleveland, and by Dallas County health officials before her flight from Cleveland to Dallas last Monday. Before boarding her return flight, she reported her temperature three times, and each time was cleared to fly, her family said. 
 
 Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C., had publicly stated that because Ms. Vinson was being monitored, she should not have boarded the return flight, although it later became clear that the agency had allowed her to fly. 
 
 “Suggestions that she ignored any of the physician and government-provided protocols recommended to her are patently untrue and hurtful,” the statement read. “She has not and would not knowingly expose herself or anyone else.” 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 In a statement, Ms. Troh expressed relief that the Ebola threat in the Texas cases was drawing to a close, but sadness over the death of Mr. Duncan. 
 
 “We are so happy this is coming to an end, and we are so grateful that none of us has shown any sign of illness,” Ms. Troh said in the statement. “We have lost so much, but we have our lives and we have our faith in God, which always gives us hope. Even though the quarantine is over, our time of mourning is not over. Because of that, we ask to be given privacy as we seek to rebuild our home, our family and our daily living.” 
 
 Ms. Troh — along with her 13-year-old son, Timothy, and the two young men who shared the apartment with her and Mr. Duncan — were removed from the contaminated apartment several days after Mr. Duncan was hospitalized. They were moved to a residence provided by a local benefactor. Local leaders and Ms. Troh’s pastor, the Rev. George Mason, had been looking for a place for them to move but had trouble finding a landlord willing to rent to them. They appeared to have found a single-family rental home for them to move into temporarily. Their old apartment was gutted, and many of their personal belongings were incinerated. “What she wants more than anything else is to get out of there with those boys and, in her language, be an American,” the pastor said. “She’s an American and she wants to live her life and be respected because she’s done nothing wrong.” 
 
 An unnamed Dallas philanthropist plans to donate tens of thousands of dollars to Ms. Troh, the officials said. Michael Wayne Lively, 52, never met Mr. Duncan, but he rode in Ambulance No. 37, and that was all it took to drastically change his life for three weeks. Paramedics used that ambulance to ferry Mr. Duncan to Presbyterian on Sept. 28, but before it was taken out of service and decontaminated, they answered the call to pick up Mr. Lively. 
 
 Continue reading the main story More Ebola Coverage 
 
 Originally from Lumberton, Miss., Mr. Lively has been a homeless drifter in Dallas for years. After Mr. Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola, Mr. Lively was being monitored but went missing for a time, spreading fear throughout Dallas that a man at risk of Ebola was wandering the city. He was found, and handed a state-issued order forbidding him from leaving Presbyterian hospital and from receiving any visitors without prior approval. 
 
 The order — known as a communicable disease control order — was similar to the one handed Ms. Troh and the three others in the apartment. If Mr. Lively and the others did not comply, they were threatened with criminal prosecution or civil court proceedings. Officials said a total of seven people have received the orders in Dallas — Ms. Troh and the three others; Mr. Lively; and two community members. 
 
 All of those whose monitoring was coming to an end had been potentially exposed to Mr. Duncan before he was admitted and put into isolation at the hospital on Sept. 28. They have been released from monitoring in stages. At least 14 of them had been released by Saturday. Others were released Sunday afternoon and some, like Ms. Troh, were released midnight Sunday. A few others may be released after Monday, officials said. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 “It’s a significant hurdle for us to get over,” Mayor Mike Rawlings said. “It brings a little bounce in our step, because we know the science is working.” 
 
 The Ebola virus has an average eight-day to 10-day incubation period, but federal health officials recommend monitoring exposed people for symptoms for 21 days. 
 
 Dozens of others continue to be monitored. On Sunday, federal officials released updated numbers and said they were monitoring 149 people total, including the contacts of Mr. Duncan as well of Ms. Pham and Ms. Vinson. Most of those 149 are health care workers who treated Mr. Duncan. But some of them are passengers on a Frontier Airlines flight that Ms. Vinson took from Cleveland to Dallas the day before she showed symptoms. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said passengers on that flight, and those on Ms. Vinson’s first flight from Dallas to Cleveland, were at low risk. 
 
 Ohio health officials reported Sunday that they had been in touch with 153 people across 16 counties who might have contacted Ms. Vinson during her visit there around the time Ms. Pham was diagnosed, but before it was determined that she, too, had Ebola. None of the 153 had been diagnosed with Ebola, but three were under quarantine, the state reported. It was unclear whether the Ohio numbers were included in or separate from the federal monitoring. 
 
 At Summa Akron City Hospital, workers have been practicing their response to an Ebola case. In addition to planned drills, doctors said, there have already been two false alarms in which Summa patients believed themselves to be at risk for Ebola but turned out not to be. 
 
 In Spain, officials said Sunday that tests showed that a nursing assistant who had been infected with Ebola has no traces of the virus left in her bloodstream. The medical worker, Teresa Romero, 44, contracted Ebola after caring for priests who got Ebola while doing missionary work in West Africa. Officials said Ms. Romero must undergo at least one more Ebola test to make sure she is virus free. ||||| Story highlights DA's office: A "criminal matter" if Duncan "knowingly ... exposed" public to Ebola 
 
 Crews have begun cleaning the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan stayed 
 
 County official: 4 quarantined were "very pleased" to move into 4-bedroom home 
 
 U.S. official: "The United States is well-equipped to stop Ebola in its tracks" 
 
 A Dallas apartment where the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States had stayed is finally getting a thorough cleaning, days after the diagnosis left four people quarantined there with soiled towels and sweat-stained sheets from the Ebola patient. 
 
 After some delays, the first of three phases to clean the apartment began Friday afternoon. While the process will take days, at least sheets and towels that Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan used have been removed. 
 
 Also out are the four people -- the partner of the Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan , her 13-year-old son and her two 20-something nephews -- who'd been stuck there for days. 
 
 They had been ordered to stay inside the apartment until October 19. By that point, enough time should have passed to determine if any of them contracted Ebola or if they're in the clear. 
 
 Judge Clay Jenkins, director of the county's Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said Friday that Duncan's partner slept last night on a couch pillow on the living room floor. But now she and the others have a new place to call home in the meantime: a private 4-bedroom residence in Dallas, which was arranged with the help of someone in the local faith-based community. 
 
 "They were very glad to be going and very pleased when they got there," Jenkins said. "(One of them) got a big grin on his face, and he said, 'I wish somebody would get me a basketball.' So we're going to see if we can't take care of that." 
 
 JUST WATCHED New test could rapidly diagnose Ebola Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH New test could rapidly diagnose Ebola 02:18 
 
 JUST WATCHED Hazmat crew at quarantined apartment Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Hazmat crew at quarantined apartment 02:45 
 
 JUST WATCHED Patient with Ebola-like symptoms in D.C. Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Patient with Ebola-like symptoms in D.C. 01:21 
 
 The move added to a busy day for the quartet, who until then had gotten little more than brief stops from a health official and were told not to go more than a few steps outside. On Friday, they were visited by a hazardous materials team wearing masks, boots and yellow protective gear, as seen in photos tweeted by Dallas city spokeswoman Sana Syed . A large tarp was laid out, and several oil-drum like containers were on site. 
 
 Some have criticized the fact that it took so long to start the process, given that health officials announced three days ago that Duncan had Ebola. At that time, four people Duncan had stayed with in the Texas city were ordered not to leave the apartment because of possible lingering effects of Duncan, from his clothes to toilets to silverware. 
 
 Additionally, the Dallas hospital where Duncan is being treated has come under fire for how it handled his first visit there eight days ago. 
 
 Duncan's partner, identified only as Louise, told CNN's Anderson Cooper that hospital medical staff were twice told that Duncan, who was suffering with fever and abdominal pain, had recently arrived from West Africa -- key information that could have been a tipoff for Ebola, yet was never properly relayed. Instead, he was released with an antibiotic only to come back by ambulance even sicker on Sunday. 
 
 Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged to reporters Friday that "there were missteps" in Dallas as to how Duncan's case was initially treated. But he also insisted that "there were a lot of things that went right and are going right." 
 
 And Fauci stressed that, while there may be a case here and there, what's happened with Ebola in West Africa -- where more than 3,400 people have died and public health infrastructures have become overwhelmed -- won't happen in the United States. 
 
 "Our health care infrastructure in the United States is well-equipped to stop Ebola in its tracks," Fauci said. 
 
 Official: 50 being monitored 
 
 Until this week, Ebola's impact on the United States has been confined to preemptive measures at airports and elsewhere to stop its spread, the deployment of U.S. military and other resources to West Africa to help corral the outbreak there, and the treatment of a select few Americans who contacted the virus in Africa and were flown back home to get well. 
 
 But Duncan changed all that. 
 
 He landed in Dallas on September 20, started feeling sick days later, then made his initial visit to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital late on September 25. He went back three days later and was quickly isolated, with a blood test confirmed he had Ebola on Tuesday. 
 
 If he gets healthy, Duncan could be in trouble: Some in Liberia have accused him of lying on a pre-flight questionnaire about his contact with Ebola sufferers, leading to threats of charges by authorities there and prompting the Dallas County district attorney's office to announce it is "looking into whether or not (he) knowingly and intentionally exposed the public to a deadly virus -- making this a criminal matter." 
 
 For now, though, any future legal battles are overshadowed by Duncan's fight for his life -- in isolation, in serious condition, at Texas Health Presbyterian. 
 
 No one he'd come in contact with has shown symptoms of Ebola, though officials were watching them -- 50 people in all -- just in case. 
 
 These 50 are people Duncan came in contact with while he was contagious. Monitoring means a public health worker visits the contacts twice a day to take temperatures and to ask if they are experiencing any symptoms. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Ebola patient in U.S. in stable condition Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Ebola patient in U.S. in stable condition 02:57 
 
 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Photos: The Ebola epidemic An Ebola survivor participates in a study in Monrovia, Liberia, on June 17, 2015. The country launched a five-year study to unravel the mystery of the long-term health effects that plague survivors of the viral disease. Since the epidemic started more than a year ago in a remote village in Guinea, more than 11,000 people have died, the vast majority in three West African nations, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization . And that number is believed to be low, since there was widespread under-reporting of cases, according to WHO. Hide Caption 1 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Women in Monrovia celebrate after the World Health Organization declared Liberia Ebola-free on May 9, 2015. Other cases have recurred since, however. Two people in Liberia have died of the disease since the end of June, just weeks after the WHO declared the nation free of the disease. Hide Caption 2 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man walks past an Ebola awareness painting in Monrovia on March 22, 2015. Hide Caption 3 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division walk across the tarmac at Campbell Army Airfield before reuniting with their families at a homecoming ceremony March 21, 2015 in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 162 soldiers were deployed in Liberia, where they helped fight the spread of Ebola. Hide Caption 4 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Relatives weep for a loved one who it was believed died from Ebola, at a graveyard on the outskirts of Monrovia on March 11, 2015. Hide Caption 5 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Doctors Without Borders staffer Alex Eilert Paulsen watches as mattresses and bed frames burn at the Ebola Treatment Unit in Paynesville, Liberia, on January 31, 2015. The organization reduced its number of beds from 250 to 30 as gains were made in battling the virus. Hide Caption 6 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Pauline Cafferkey, a Scottish woman diagnosed with Ebola, is put on a plane in Glasgow, Scotland, on December 30, 2014. Cafferkey, a 39-year-old nurse who volunteered in Sierra Leone, was being transported to London for treatment. Hide Caption 7 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A child who survived the Ebola virus is fed by another survivor at a treatment center on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on November 11, 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers in Monrovia cover the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on October 31, 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Kaci Hickox leaves her home in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend on October 30, 2014. Hickox, a nurse, recently returned to the United States from West Africa, where she treated Ebola victims. State authorities wanted her to avoid public places for 21 days -- the virus' incubation period. But Hickox, who twice tested negative for Ebola, said she would defy efforts to keep her quarantined at home. Hide Caption 10 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health officials in Nairobi, Kenya, prepare to screen passengers arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on October 28, 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office of the White House on October 24, 2014. Pham, one of two Dallas nurses diagnosed with the virus, was declared Ebola-free after being treated at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The other nurse, Amber Vinson (not pictured), was treated in Atlanta and also declared Ebola-free. Hide Caption 12 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, transport the body of a person who is suspected to have died of Ebola on October 21, 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health workers bury a body on the outskirts of Monrovia on October 20, 2014. Hide Caption 14 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Garteh Korkoryah, center, is comforted during a memorial service for her son, Thomas Eric Duncan, on October 18, 2014, in Salisbury, North Carolina. Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, died October 8 in a Dallas hospital. He was in the country to visit his son and his son's mother, and he was the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola. Hide Caption 15 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Boys run from blowing dust as a U.S. military aircraft leaves the construction site of an Ebola treatment center in Tubmanburg, Liberia, on October 15, 2014. Hide Caption 16 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Aid workers from the Liberian Medical Renaissance League stage an Ebola awareness event October 15, 2014, in Monrovia. The group performs street dramas throughout Monrovia to educate the public on Ebola symptoms and how to handle people who are infected with the virus. Hide Caption 17 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Ebola survivors prepare to leave a Doctors Without Borders treatment center after recovering from the virus in Paynesville, Liberia, on October 12, 2014. Hide Caption 18 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man dressed in protective clothing treats the front porch of a Dallas apartment on October 12, 2014. The apartment is home to one of the two nurses who were diagnosed with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national who traveled to Dallas and later died from the virus. Hide Caption 19 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation October 10, 2014, in Monrovia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. Hide Caption 20 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A man digs a grave on October 7, 2014, outside an Ebola treatment center near Gbarnga, Liberia. Hide Caption 21 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A person peeks out from the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States, was staying on October 3, 2014. Hide Caption 22 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A girl cries as community activists approach her outside her Monrovia home on October 2, 2014, a day after her mother was taken to an Ebola ward. Hide Caption 23 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health official uses a thermometer September 29, 2014, to screen a Ukrainian crew member on the deck of a cargo ship at the Apapa port in Lagos, Nigeria. Hide Caption 24 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Workers move a building into place as part of a new Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on September 28, 2014. Hide Caption 25 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Medics load an Ebola patient onto a plane at Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport on September 22, 2014. Hide Caption 26 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A few people are seen in Freetown during a three-day nationwide lockdown on September 21, 2014. In an attempt to curb the spread of the Ebola virus, people in Sierra Leone were told to stay in their homes. Hide Caption 27 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Supplies wait to be loaded onto an aircraft at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on September 20, 2014. It was the largest single shipment of aid to the Ebola zone to date, and it was coordinated by the Clinton Global Initiative and other U.S. aid organizations. Hide Caption 28 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A child stops on a Monrovia street September 12, 2014, to look at a man who is suspected of suffering from Ebola. Hide Caption 29 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic After an Ebola case was confirmed in Senegal, people load cars with household items as they prepare to cross into Guinea from the border town of Diaobe, Senegal, on September 3, 2014. Hide Caption 30 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health worker wearing a protective suit conducts an Ebola prevention drill at the port in Monrovia on August 29, 2014. Hide Caption 31 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium in Marshall, Liberia, on August 22, 2014. Hide Caption 32 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Dr. Kent Brantly leaves Emory University Hospital on August 21, 2014, after being declared no longer infectious from the Ebola virus. Brantly was one of two American missionaries brought to Emory for treatment of the deadly virus. Hide Caption 33 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic An Ebola Task Force soldier beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20, 2014. Hide Caption 34 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Local residents gather around a very sick Saah Exco, 10, in a back alley of the West Point slum on August 19, 2014. The boy was one of the patients that was pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients after the facility was overrun and closed by a mob on August 16. A local clinic then refused to treat Saah, according to residents, because of the danger of infection. Although he was never tested for Ebola, Saah's mother and brother died in the holding center. Hide Caption 35 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Workers prepare the new Ebola treatment center on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 36 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum of Monrovia on August 16, 2014. A crowd of several hundred local residents reportedly drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took patients out, saying the Ebola epidemic is a hoax. Hide Caption 37 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A health worker disinfects a corpse after a man died in a classroom being used as an Ebola isolation ward August 15, 2014, in Monrovia. Hide Caption 38 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Aid worker Nancy Writebol, wearing a protective suit, gets wheeled on a gurney into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on August 5, 2014. A medical plane flew Writebol from Liberia to the United States after she and her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly were infected with the Ebola virus in the West African country. Hide Caption 39 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Members of Doctors Without Borders adjust tents in the isolation area in Kailahun on July 20, 2014. Hide Caption 40 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Boots dry in the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 20, 2014. Hide Caption 41 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Dr. Jose Rovira of the World Health Organization takes a swab from a suspected Ebola victim in Pendembu, Sierra Leone, on July 18, 2014. Hide Caption 42 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Red Cross volunteers disinfect each other with chlorine after removing the body of an Ebola victim from a house in Pendembu on July 18, 2014. Hide Caption 43 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic A scientist separates blood cells from plasma cells to isolate any Ebola RNA and test for the virus April 3, 2014, at the European Mobile Laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea. Hide Caption 44 of 45 Photos: The Ebola epidemic Health specialists work March 31, 2014, at an isolation ward for patients at the facility in southern Guinea. Hide Caption 45 of 45 
 
 JUST WATCHED Residents worried about contracting Ebola Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Residents worried about contracting Ebola 02:10 
 
 Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC said officials are casting a wide net. 
 
 "We have a low level of concern about the vast majority of these people that we're following," she said. 
 
 That sentiment was echoed Friday night by Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who pointed out "there is only one person" -- Duncan, who is in isolated in a hospital -- "that is actively showing" signs of Ebola. Only those showing symptoms of Ebola are contagious. 
 
 "We're a little anxious, but there is no fear in our eyes," Rawlings said of local residents. "We will be safe, and we will get this done in the appropriate way." 
 
 Ebola in spotlight elsewhere in U.S. 
 
 Duncan isn't the only person being talked about in the United States with real or possible Ebola. 
 
 Howard University Hospital in Washington has admitted a low-risk patient with symptoms "that could be associated with Ebola," hospital spokeswoman Kerry-Ann Hamilton said Friday. The patient, who was not named, recently traveled to Nigeria and presented with the symptoms upon his or her return, she said. The patient is in stable condition. 
 
 "In an abundance of caution, we have activated the appropriate infection control protocols, including isolating the patient," Hamilton said. "Our medical team continues to evaluate and monitor progress in close collaboration with the CDC and the Department of Health." 
 
 Officials in Georgia also said they isolated a man with flu-like symptoms who'd recently been in Africa shortly after his arrest early Friday for suspected drunken driving. But "so far all of his labwork is negative" and "we have no reason to believe that he has Ebola," Georgia Department of Public Health commissioner Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald said. 
 
 But there is one American confirmed with the virus: Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman for NBC News who was diagnosed in Monrovia on Thursday 
 
 Dr. Mitchell Levy said his son, Mukpo, remembers getting some fluid in his face while helping to disinfect a chair inside a clinic where he was filming. 
 
 JUST WATCHED 4 people quarantined in U.S. Ebola scare Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 4 people quarantined in U.S. Ebola scare 03:25 
 
 JUST WATCHED Dallas mayor: Safety is first priority Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Dallas mayor: Safety is first priority 02:10 
 
 JUST WATCHED Ebola preps difficult for hospitals Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Ebola preps difficult for hospitals 02:51 
 
 JUST WATCHED Survivor describes living through Ebola Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Survivor describes living through Ebola 01:47 
 
 Mukpo, 33, a freelance cameraman for NBC News, started feeling achy and tired Wednesday, and he quarantined himself. A day later, a test at a Doctors Without Borders facility in Monrovia confirmed that he had Ebola. NBC News has said the entire team will return to the U.S. soon aboard a private charter plane. 
 
 Levy said that his son will be heading to Nebraska Medical Center, which is the same facility where Dr. Rick Sacra was recently treated. 
 
 Official: U.S. focusing on 'source countries' 
 
 As intense as the media attention is in the United States, the issues here are nothing compared to West Africa, where Ebola continues to spread through the living and the dead and where health facilities have often been unable to keep up with the outbreak. 
 
 The U.S. government has been involved in trying to help countries like Liberia, with more help possibly on its way. 
 
 Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said Friday that the U.S. military could send as many as 4,000 troops to the Ebola-afflicted countries. About 200 U.S. troops are there now, and Washington had previously committed to sending 3,000 troops. 
 
 The U.S. troops will not treat patients, but will help establish health facilities and medical treatment units "so that the health care workers can do their jobs," Kirby said. 
 
 Paying attention to West Africa, whether it's getting Ebola patients well there or doing things to prevent infected people from leaving the country, is a national security priority for the United States, said Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser. 
 
 Monaco said Friday: "We are taking steps to address the source, the people coming from the source counties and we think those are the most effective steps we can take." ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — Ordering firm restrictions for U.S. troops returning from West Africa, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday that the military men and women helping fight Ebola must undergo 21-day quarantines — longer than required for many civilian health care workers. 
 
 President Barack Obama gestures while speaking at an event with American health care workers fighting the Ebola virus, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP... (Associated Press) 
 
 Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain attends an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, where President Barack Obama met with American health care workers fighting... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE- In this Oct. 27, 2014, file photo, an ambulance drives near University Hospital of Newark in Newark, N.J. Nurse Kaci Hickox, who was quarantined at the hospital after working in West Africa with... (Associated Press) 
 
 A Ebola health worker removes rubbish including plastic bottles from the Island Clinic Treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014. The rate of new Ebola infections in Liberia appears... (Associated Press) 
 
 Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel speaks at the sixth annual "Washington Ideas Forum" in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014. Hagel has approved a recommendation by military leaders that all U.S. troops... (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama greets Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, an Ebola survivor, after speaking at an event with American health care workers fighting Ebola, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, in the East Room of the White... (Associated Press) 
 
 In Maine, meanwhile, a civilian nurse was vigorously resisting the quarantine she was told to undergo. Kaci Hickox, who had treated Ebola patients in West Africa, said she planned to stop quarantining herself in her home, signaling a potential showdown on Thursday with state police monitoring her movements and Maine officials preparing to legally enforce the order. 
 
 President Barack Obama, meeting with health care workers at the White House, acknowledged that the United States was not invulnerable to the disease but cautioned against discouraging civilian volunteers with overly restrictive measures upon their return home. "We can't hermetically seal ourselves off," he declared. 
 
 There seemed to be good news from the region of most severe outbreaks. The World Health Organization said the rate of new Ebola infections in Liberia appeared to be declining, although it cautioned that the epidemic there was far from over. 
 
 Nearly 5,000 people have died and more than 13,700 have been sickened in the outbreak, which has hit Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone hardest. More than 6,300 of those are in Liberia alone. The U.S. military has nearly 1,000 troops in Liberia and just over 100 in Senegal supporting efforts to combat the virus. The total could grow to 3,900 under current plans, although none are intended to be in contact with Ebola patients. 
 
 Announcing his decision in Washington, Hagel said, "This is also a policy that was discussed in great detail by the communities, by the families of our military men and women, and they very much wanted a safety valve on this." 
 
 The action goes beyond precautions recommended by the Obama administration for civilians, although Obama has made clear he feels the military's situation is different. 
 
 After meeting with his Ebola advisory team and with health care workers who have been to West Africa or are preparing to go there, Obama cautioned against discouraging health care workers with restrictive measures that confine them upon their return. 
 
 "Like our military men and women deploying to West Africa, they do this for no other reason than their own sense of duty, their sense of purpose, their sense of serving a cause greater than themselves," he said. 
 
 "And we need to call them what they are, which is American heroes. They deserve our gratitude, and they deserve to be treated with dignity and with respect." 
 
 Homecoming treatment was a big issue in Maine. Nurse Kaci Hickox told NBC's "Today" show and ABC's "Good Morning America" that she was abiding by the state's voluntary quarantine by having no contact with people Tuesday and Wednesday but would defy the state if the policy wasn't changed by Thursday. 
 
 Her lawyer told The Associated Press that Hickox, who's shown no symptoms of Ebola, isn't willing to cooperate further unless the state lifts "all or most of the restrictions." The governor said Wednesday he was seeking legal authority to keep her in isolation. 
 
 Hagel's restrictive policy for U.S. troops was a response to a recommendation sent to him Tuesday by Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on behalf of the heads of each of the military services. 
 
 In his memo to Hagel, Dempsey said the military chiefs felt compelled to take greater precautions in light of "recent uncertainty surrounding domestic Ebola cases." He cited growing concern among military families and their neighbors. 
 
 "As we order our young men and women forward to execute this important mission, we owe it to them, their families, and their communities to take these prudent measures to ensure that should a member return with Ebola, we will prevent further transmission of the virus," Dempsey wrote. 
 
 Pentagon officials said it was too early to know exactly how the quarantine will work. Hagel said he directed the Joint Chiefs to work that out within 15 days. A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said it is yet to be determined whether the new policy applies to Defense Department civilians returning from Liberia and to military air crews who fly in and out of the area without staying overnight. 
 
 U.S. troops are performing a range of tasks in Liberia to support the battle against Ebola, but none are treating patients or otherwise having direct contact with infected people. For example they have set up a 25-bed hospital to be operated by U.S. Public Health Service medical workers, and personnel from the U.S. Naval Medical Research Center are operating three mobile medical laboratories in Liberia to test blood sample for the virus. U.S. air crews are flying MV-22 Ospreys and other aircraft in the area to deliver supplies, materials and U.S. personnel. 
 
 As originally envisioned, Pentagon policy called for troops returning to their home bases from Ebola response missions to undergo temperature checks twice a day for 21 days to ensure they were free of symptoms and to refrain from traveling widely during that period. But they were not to be quarantined and kept from contact with others. 
 
 The Army, however, acting on its own this week, put a small number of returning soldiers, including a two-star general, in 21-day quarantine in Italy. That group was the first to return from West Africa after Ebola duty. Warren said that group of soldiers has grown from 12 to 42; all are in supervised isolation at a military base in Vicenza, their home base. 
 
 In Liberia, meanwhile, the WHO said there are empty beds in some treatment centers and the number of burials has declined.
– "For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are Time's 2014 Person of the Year." So concludes editor Nancy Gibbs' piece on why this year's honor goes to a group of people who have "the hero's heart," those who freely put themselves at risk in order to fight the virus. Time shares the stories of a few of the many, some in their own words (Kaci Hickox and Dr. Kent Brantly penned their own stories). One nurse's assistant who survived Ebola describes hurt "like they are busting your head with an ax"—though a hurt perhaps second to watching her parents die. "I went out of my mind for about one week," says Salome Karwah. Time ultimately photographed more than 20 Ebola fighters in a dozen locations around the globe for its story. In Gibbs' piece, she shifts from writing of how the fighters were tested to how we were all tested and, in many ways, failed: On our own soil, a "full freak-out" quickly ensued, with an Ohio school closed because an employee flew on the same plane (not flight) as one of Thomas Eric Duncan's nurses, and with a Maine teacher unable to return to her school for three weeks simply because she attended a conference in Dallas. "The problem with irrational responses is that they can cloud the need for rational ones"—which this honored group of men and women had. This year's runners-up: Ferguson protesters, Vladimir Putin, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, and Alibaba founder Jack Ma.