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There's no sign of Ebola in Minnesota, but public health officials said they are prepared to treat and contain the disease if an infected patient arrives.


The first case of the deadly hemorrhagic fever was confirmed in the U.S. Tuesday.  The patient is being treated at a Dallas hospital after traveling to Texas from Liberia.

First US case of Ebola confirmed in Dallas

Search is on for patient's family, friends


Kris Ehresmann, director of the infectious disease division with the Minnesota Department of Health, said the disease similarly could appear in Minnesota. The state has one of the nation's largest Liberian communities.


Ehresmann said Ebola in Minnesota would likely be treated locally.


"An Ebola patient in Minnesota would go to whoever their usual health care provider was. There are no designated Ebola hospitals," Ehresmann said, after getting word of the Dallas case. "What we know about Ebola and how it's spread, any hospital that practices infection control can care for a patient with Ebola."


The state is alerting health care providers to be vigilant about the possibility -- particularly as flu season approaches, Ehresmann said.  Ebola and flu are both viral infections, and can start with some of the same symptoms.


"The important thing is not just the symptoms, but the travel history -- what were you doing, what were your potential exposures," Ehresmann said. "There are ways to kind of drill down so that every person who has any sort of general malaise and fever does not have to be a person of interest or concern."


Another challenge, she says: even sick people may not be easy to diagnose with Ebola. People with the disease may initially test falsely negative for Ebola because the virus is at too low a concentration in their bodies to be positively identified.


That said, state health officials say Minnesota is in a good position to respond to Ebola.


For one thing, the state had a trial run earlier this year: an air traveler returned from West Africa in March with Lassa fever -- another viral infection. Lassa is also a hemorrhagic fever. It is less deadly than, but spreads similarly to, Ebola.


"We actually have a situation in which we had a case of viral hemorrhagic fever here in Minnesota that was cared for at one of our hospitals and we did not see any transmission," she said.


The state is also a key part of the federal Laboratory Response Network, a system of health labs that can quickly track down and identify infectious diseases. As such, the state lab in St. Paul has an Ebola test on hand, ready to confirm an infection and put a response into motion.


But Minnesotans also need to keep the danger in perspective, she says.


"I think the public needs to recognize that first of all this is a high concern disease, but it's not easily spread. It's not spread through the air. And so we need to keep that in perspective. So right now if you live in Minnesota, make sure you're wearing your seat belt, make sure you get a flu shot, make sure you're doing the things that you can control that really we know will have a direct impact on your health."

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Public health officials say they are ready to treat and contain the disease if an infected patient arrives.

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