--- title: Second Patient Monitored for Ebola in Texas description: Health officials assure the public that only friends and family of the first patient are at serious risk canonical: https://time.com/3453093/ebola-texas-dallas-second-patient/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-01T17:39:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:29.525Z article:section: Health og:title: Second Patient Monitored for Ebola in Texas og:description: Health officials assure the public that only friends and family of the first patient are at serious risk og:url: https://time.com/3453093/ebola-texas-dallas-second-patient/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4776bd7495299684/6986a642cd804d501fccd13b/ebola10.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1796 og:image:height: 1010 og:image:alt: Ebola og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Second Patient Monitored for Ebola in Texas twitter:description: Health officials assure the public that only friends and family of the first patient are at serious risk twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4776bd7495299684/6986a642cd804d501fccd13b/ebola10.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Second Patient Monitored for Ebola in Texas > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=805507ac-99cf-48ae-8164-a6797a68551a&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8) (2:32)  _Published 2014-08-13. Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola_  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Oct 1, 2014 5:39 PM UTC  Transmission electron micrograph of Ebola virus Transmission electron micrograph of Ebola virus Getty Images  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Oct 1, 2014 5:39 PM UTC Health officials in Texas are monitoring a [second patient for Ebola](http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/01/thompson-dallas-county-ebola-patient-cases/16524303/), as they investigate over a dozen individuals who were in contact with the first person diagnosed with the disease in the United States. “Let me be real frank to the Dallas County residents: The fact that we have one confirmed case, there may be another case that is a close associate with this particular patient,” Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS), said in a morning interview with WFAA-TV. “So this is real. There should be a concern, but it’s contained to the specific family members and close friends at this moment.” The Dallas County bureau later underscored that there had been no confirmation of a second case, as some media outlets had reported: > [](https://twitter.com/DCHHS/status/517349667416199168) Officials have said the man came into contact with 12 to 18 people after returning from Liberia, all of whom are being investigated. The first case of Ebola was confirmed at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Tuesday. The patient had flown from Liberia to Texas on Sept. 19 and sought treatment for symptoms on Sept. 26\. Health officials say they have contained the virus to the area and are working closely with the Dallas County school district. \[[_WFAA_](http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/01/thompson-dallas-county-ebola-patient-cases/16524303/)[_\-TV_](http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/01/thompson-dallas-county-ebola-patient-cases/16524303/)\] ## Transcript [00:02] This Ebola outbreak is unprecedented. This is [00:05] definitely a marathon and not a sprint. The bugs have [00:08] evolved. The outbreak has gotten bigger. We are only [00:11] as strong as the weakest link, and we have learned [00:13] from Ebola that West Africa was a very weak link. [00:16] [ MUSIC ] [00:19] There's small clinics, these are like one room places [00:22] where sick people might go in their house with maybe [00:25] an auxiliary nurse as some one who has a little bit of [00:27] medical training, but defiantly not the same standards [00:30] that we would have here in the US. We're facing 3 main [00:33] threats. The first is the threat of new organisms. It was [00:36] coming and spreading in different places. The second [00:40] is drug- resistant bacteria, and the third are [00:43] intentionally created organisms. What we do in an [00:46] outbreak response is continuously see how can we [00:49] make it better. The exercises we've gone through [00:53] both, re- evaluating our own protocols but also [00:55] understanding what the public and governmental [00:58] responses are has really helped us understand. How [01:01] to take care of these patients in the larger context of [01:04] our healthcare systems. And, those who are in the [01:06] building, I would urge you to come down to either the [01:07] ops team room, or the, When [01:11] designing a unit that is designed to accept patients [01:16] with serious communicable diseases, like Ebola, there [01:18] are ways to design a unit so that it's function. [01:21] Functional. Any hospital that can isolate a patient in a [01:24] single patient room with a bathroom and can follow our [01:27] infection control recommendations is capable of safely [01:30] caring for a patient with Ebola. And we've tried to [01:32] encourage every single hospital in the country to have [01:35] an antibiotic stewardship program to improve [01:38] antibiotic prescribing practices. There [01:42] is a concern about fatigue as we go on that, [01:46] the CDC other groups have sort of ramping up now to [01:48] try to surge resources into the area. What we're also [01:51] realizing is, we need to be able to maintain that surge [01:55] for many months to keep the pressure on to [01:57] completely control the outbreak. Time [02:02] will tell in the next few weeks if we can start to see [02:04] those numbers going in the right direction. Fewer new [02:07] cases each day or each week. The single most [02:11] important thing to understand about protecting [02:13] Americans from Ebola is that can best be done by [02:16] stopping it at the source in Africa. Its normal to be [02:20] scared of something as deadly as Ebola and for the [02:23] general public I really hope we can never let our fear [02:27] undermine our compassion. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3453093/ebola-texas-dallas-second-patient/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3453093/ebola-texas-dallas-second-patient/"},"headline":"Second Patient Monitored for Ebola in Texas","datePublished":"2014-10-01T17:39:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:05:29.525Z","description":"Health officials assure the public that only friends and family of the first patient are at serious risk","url":"https://time.com/3453093/ebola-texas-dallas-second-patient/","keywords":["ebola","Infectious Disease"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4776bd7495299684/6986a642cd804d501fccd13b/ebola10.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4776bd7495299684/6986a642cd804d501fccd13b/ebola10.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Ebola","caption":"Ebola","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/ebola/","name":"ebola"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3453093/ebola-texas-dallas-second-patient/","name":"Second Patient Monitored for Ebola in Texas"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","description":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/G194AmTC/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-13T23:41:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3453093/ebola-texas-dallas-second-patient/","duration":"PT2M32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3453093/ebola-texas-dallas-second-patient/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```