[4] On September 30, 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that Thomas Eric Duncan, a 45-year-old Liberian national visiting the United States from Liberia, had been diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas, Texas.

Public health experts and the Obama administration opposed instituting a travel ban on Ebola endemic areas, stating that it would be ineffective and would paradoxically worsen the situation.

– President Barack Obama on the Ebola outbreak Duncan's condition worsened, and he was transported on September 28 to the same Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital emergency room by ambulance.

Their concern surrounds the reality that understaffed and poorly equipped hospitals performing invasive procedures, like renal dialysis and intubation, both of which Duncan received at Texas Presbyterian, could put staff at too much risk for contracting the virus.

[55] On the night of October 10, Nina Pham, a 26-year-old nurse who had treated Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, reported a low-grade fever and was placed in isolation.

Aguirre said that she and others had not received proper training or personal protective equipment, and that the hospital had not provided consistent protocols for handling potential Ebola patients into the second week of the crisis.

[65] A report indicated that healthcare workers did not wear hazmat suits until Duncan's test results confirmed his infection due to Ebola, two days after his admission to the hospital.

[67] On March 2, 2015 The New York Times reported that Pham filed a suit against Texas Health Resources, her hospital's parent company, accusing it of "negligence, fraud and invasion of privacy".

[79][80] On October 19, Vinson's family released a statement detailing her government-approved travel clearances and announcing that they had hired a Washington, DC, attorney, Billy Martin.

[14] On October 22, the day before he had symptoms, Dr. Spencer rode the New York City Subway, walked on the High Line park, went to a bowling alley and a restaurant in Brooklyn, took an Uber to his home in Manhattan, and took a 3-mile (4.8 km) jog in Harlem near where he lived.

In addition, the city's health department established a 24-hour-a-day operation involving 500 staffers to keep track of the approximately 300 persons from West Africa hot spots who arrive in New York every day.

[106] Kent Brantly, a physician and medical director in Liberia for the aid group Samaritan's Purse, and co-worker Nancy Writebol were infected in July 2014, while working in Monrovia.

[107][108][109] Both were flown to the United States at the beginning of August via the CDC's Aeromedical Biological Containment System for further treatment in Atlanta's Emory University Hospital.

Until October 20, 2014, the CDC guidelines allowed hospitals wide latitude to select gear based on interaction between healthcare workers and patients and on the mode of transmission of the disease being handled.

Sean Kaufman, who oversaw infection control at Emory University Hospital while it treated Ebola patients, has said the previous CDC guidelines were "absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong".

[159] A physician with the WHO, Aileen Marty, who had spent 31 days in Nigeria, criticized the complete lack of screening for Ebola on her recent return to the United States through Miami International Airport on October 12.

[160][161] On October 7, 2014, Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy signed an order authorizing the mandatory quarantine for 21 days of anyone, even if asymptomatic, who had direct contact with Ebola patients.

Cuomo said Dr. Spencer's activity in the days before his diagnosis showed the guidelines, which includes urging health care workers and others who have had contact with Ebola patients to voluntarily quarantine themselves, were not enough.

[174] Kaci Hickox, an American nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone became the first person placed under the new mandatory quarantine rules on her arrival at Newark Liberty International Airport, in New Jersey.

[176] The hospital responded that they tried their best to accommodate Hickox by allowing her to have computer access, cell phone, reading materials, and providing take-out food and drink.

[185] On November 13, 2014, President Obama issued a presidential memorandum, invoking a federal law to immunize contractors hired by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from liability "with respect to claims, losses, or damage arising out of or resulting from exposure, in the course of performance of the contracts, to Ebola" during the emergency period.

The director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has stated that the scientific community is still in the early stages of understanding how infection with the Ebola virus can be treated and prevented.

[206] Treatment using a transfusion of plasma from Ebola survivors, a form of "passive immunotherapy",[207] since it contains antibodies able to fight the virus, has been used with apparent success on a number of patients.

[212][213] In late October 2014, Canada planned to ship 800 vials of an experimental vaccine to the WHO in Geneva, the drug having been licensed by NewLink Genetics Corporation, of Iowa.

[217] In October 2014, Navarro College, a two-year public school located in Texas, received media attention for admission rejection letters sent to two prospective students from Nigeria.

[218] On October 16, Navarro's Vice-President Dewayne Gragg issued a statement confirming that there had indeed been a decision to "postpone our recruitment in those nations that the Center for Disease Control and the U.S. State Department have identified as at risk".

[219] Nigeria's outbreak was among the least severe in West Africa and was considered over by the WHO on October 20; the Nigerian health ministry had previously announced on September 22 that there were no confirmed cases of Ebola within the country.

[citation needed] In October 2014, the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University withdrew an invitation it had extended to Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Michel du Cille because he'd returned three weeks earlier from covering the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.

[220][221] In October 2014, Case Western Reserve University withdrew their speaking invitation to Dr. Richard E. Besser, chief health editor at ABC News and former director of the CDC.

[221][222][223] On October 17, Harvard University imposed limits on travel to Ebola-affected countries (Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia) for its students, staff, and faculty.