U.S. aid worker infected with Ebola to be moved to Atlanta hospital: official

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This photo provided by the CDC shows an ebola Virus. U.S. health officials are monitoring the Ebola outbreak in Africa but say the risk of the deadly germ spreading to the United States is remote. (AP

A U.S. humanitarian aid worker who was infected with Ebola in West Africa will be transferred back to the United States and treated in a special high security ward at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, hospital officials said on Thursday.

The aid worker, who was infected while working to help contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, will be moved in the next several days to a special isolation unit it has set up in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The unit is one of only four in the United States.

Emory did not reveal the name of the patient.

Earlier on Thursday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a news briefing that the State Department was working with the CDC facilitate options for potential medical evacuations of American humanitarian aid workers who have contracted Ebola in West Africa, although he did not mention the workers by name.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg, editing by G Crosse)