Ebola enters US for first time as infected aid workers returned

The return to the US of two aid workers infected with Ebola will be the first time the disease has entered the country.

Dr. Kent Brantly at an Ebola clinic in Foya, Liberia, is now infected himself.

Two American aid workers seriously ill with Ebola are being brought from West Africa to one of the most tightly sealed isolation units in the US, officials say.

It will be the first time anyone infected with the disease has been brought into the country.

One was to arrive on Saturday in a private jet outfitted with a portable tent designed for transporting patients with highly infectious diseases, doctors said at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital, where they will be treated. The second is to arrive a few days later.

US officials are confident the patients can be treated without putting the public in danger.

Dr. Bruce Ribner, an epidemiologist and professor in the School of Medicine's Infectious Diseases Division, confirms that Emory University Hospital will be receiving and treating two American patients diagnosed with Ebola virus during a press conference. (Getty Images)

Ebola, which has no cure, is spread through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids from an infected person, not through the air. The outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the largest ever recorded, has sickened more than 1300 people and killed more than 700 this year.

The two Americans - Dr Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol - worked for US missionary groups in Liberia at a hospital that treated Ebola patients. The State Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are assisting the groups in their transfer.

The government is working to ensure any Ebola-related evacuations "are carried out safely, thereby protecting the patient and the American public", State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement released on Friday.

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A defence department spokesman said Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, would be used for the transfer.

Brantly and Writebol were in serious condition and were still in Liberia on Friday, according to the US-based charity Samaritan's Purse, which is paying for their transfer and medical care.

Two American aid workers with Ebola are being brought to a sealed isolation unit in the US. (AAP)

The two-bed Emory isolation unit opened 12 years ago. It was designed to handle workers from the CDC if they became infected while working on a dangerous, infectious germ.

It was one of about four such units around the country for testing and treating people who might have been exposed to dangerous viruses, said Dr Eileen Farnon, a Temple University doctor who worked at the Atlanta-based CDC and led teams investigating past Ebola outbreaks in Africa.