Ebola Chicago O’Hare 2014: Two Passengers On Flights From Liberia Being Evaluated For Symptoms Of Virus

Two people who arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Tuesday are being evaluated at hospitals in Chicago for signs of Ebola after the passengers, who traveled from Liberia but were on different planes, became ill during their flights. One of the passengers, a child, vomited one time aboard the aircraft, according to Sun-Times Media. The other passenger, an adult traveling alone from Liberia, reported having nausea and diarrhea, but had a normal temperature during a screening.

The child was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center for isolation and evaluation. Members of the child’s family were not symptomatic, but were placed in quarantine until the child’s evaluation could be completed. The second passenger was taken to Rush University Medical Center. Both medical centers are among the four Chicago hospitals that have agreed to accept Ebola patients from other hospitals and health centers should any cases appear in the city, according to the Chicago Tribune.

"The patient has been assigned a dedicated and highly trained team of health care providers, who will deploy strict isolation and infection control procedures,” the University of Chicago Medical Center said in a statement, according to Sun-Times. “We have absolute confidence in this team's ability to safely care for this patient.”

Despite showing some symptoms consistent with Ebola, health officials have decided not to test the passengers for the disease after determining that both travelers had no known risk of exposure to the virus. “To be clear, at this time there have been no confirmed cases of Ebola, and there is no threat to the general public,” officials from the Chicago Ebola Resource Network said in a statement.

Travelers entering the U.S. whose trips originated in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, where the Ebola outbreak has claimed over 4,500 lives and infected thousands more, must fly into one of five airports that have enhanced screening procedures in place, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday. The airports are Washington Dulles International, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, Newark’s Liberty International, Chicago’s O’Hare and New York’s John F. Kennedy International.