Ebola Virus in USA: Dallas Patient 'Critical'; Could Spread Virus in State

The first Ebola virus patient in the US continues to fight for his life but has remained in critical condition, a top health official said.

A news report published by the New York Times on Sunday quoted Dr. Thomas Friedan, director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying that patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who started to get ill after arriving in Dallas City, Texas two weeks ago, is now under critical condition.

The same report also said that Friedan is still "confident" that they can contain the disease that is continuously spreading in Africa and that it would not spread widely in the country.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that another Ebola patient who got the disease while in Liberia is set to arrive in Nebraska on Monday. It has been speculated that the patient is 33-year-old American photojournalist, Ashoka Mukpo. Mukpo was a freelance cameraman for NBC News, and is the fifth American to return to the U.S. for treatment.

Nebraska Medical Center is also where American missionary Dr. Rick Sacra was treated. The 51-year-old doctor, the third American aid worker who contracted the disease in Africa, was released late September.

'All gone'

Reuters also reported that Frieden disclosed that ZMapp, the experimental Ebola drug developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., were "all gone."

He, however, maintained that the usage of the experimental drug for Ebola patients is still up to the patients' doctors, himself, and his family.

The treatment has never been tried in humans but it has shown promise in experiments with monkeys.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has earlier identified at least 10 people who had direct contact with Duncan while another over 30 people are being monitored as potential contacts, the report also said.

Another patient in Florida is being monitored after showing some symptoms and disclosing that he had traveled to West Africa recently.

Some of the symptoms of the Ebola virus are fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. The virus spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood and saliva.

According to the World Health Organization, the virus has already killed more than 3,000 people, mostly in African countries Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, and Nigeria.

The 2014 Ebola epidemic, according to CDC website, is considered as the largest in history. A few cases have also been recorded in Senegal and Democratic Republic of the Congo. A total of 42 deaths out of 70 cases of Ebola virus reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been reported. These cases however are not related to the current outbreak in West Africa. CDC also reported that no new cases have been recorded in Nigeria and Senegal since September 5.