Two of the nurses who treated Duncan in Dallas, Texas hospital have been diagnosed with the disease, as several hundred people in potential contact with the two nurses have been tracked so far. Duncan was returning home from an Ebola infested Liberia.
"I think there will be an increase of people who want to get checked out just because of the fear factor, especially if we start to see more of a spread of Ebola," Dr. Sampson Davis, an emergency medicine physician at Meadowlands Hospital Center in Secaucus, New Jersey said.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday tried to calm Americans on the Ebola virus that has so far infected three people in the U.S. and killed one. "What we're seeing now is not an "outbreak" or an "epidemic" of Ebola in America," Obama said in his weekly video address. "This is a serious disease, but we can't give in to hysteria or fear."
Obama's message comes as he is preparing to ask Congress for additional funds to help with the fight against the Ebola virus. The request could come as early as next week, according to a report published by Bloomberg on Saturday, but it is not known how much money the White House is planning to ask from Congress.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ebola outbreak has killed about 4,500 people, with the large majority of victims in West Africa -- Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that as many as 1.4 million people could be infected by the virus.
