Health officials confirm the first case of Ebola diagnosed in...

Health officials confirm the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States -- Thomas Eric Duncan is in isolation and in intensive care at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, which is shown above on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. Credit: AP

It's not enough for health professionals to know how to prevent the spread of Ebola. They have to do it. When doctors and others at a hospital in Dallas didn't take the proper steps, they put Americans at risk of exposure to the deadly disease.

Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States, walked into the hospital's emergency room a week ago with symtoms consistent with the disease. Astoundingly, he was sent home with antibiotics for what doctors decided was just a mild fever -- even though he told a nurse he'd recently come from Ebola-ravaged Liberia. Hospital officials said that key bit of information wasn't passed along within the facility. Duncan returned two days later and was finally admitted.

That's dangerously slipshod when dealing with the largest outbreak in history of an infectious disease that as of Monday had killed 3,091 people in West Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is right to emphasize the importance of checking travel histories.

Ebola patients are contagious only after developing symptoms, and the virus is transmitted only through contact with their bodily fluids. The disease can be contained and people in this country kept safe. But it will take much greater vigilance than was exercised in Dallas.

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