US President Barack Obama has pledged a "much more aggressive" response at home to the Ebola threat, and insisted that the risk of a serious outbreak on US soil was low.
After a crisis meeting with top aides at the White House on Wednesday, Obama underlined the importance of helping African countries stem the spread of the virus, calling such aid "an investment in our own public health".
"If we are not responding internationally in an effective way... then we could have problems," Obama said in comments aired on US television.
The meeting - attended by Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, among others - came after a second US Ebola infection was diagnosed at a Texas hospital where a Liberian man died a week ago.
Obama said meeting participants discussed "monitoring, supervising, overseeing in a much more aggressive way exactly what's taking place in Dallas" to ensure those lessons are "transmitted to hospitals and clinics all across the country".
"This is not a situation in which, like a flu, the risks of a rapid spread of the disease are imminent," Obama said, adding he "shook hands with, hugged and kissed" nurses who had treated an Ebola patient at Emory University hospital in Atlanta.
"They followed the protocols. They knew what they were doing and I felt perfectly safe doing so," he said.
"I am absolutely confident that we can prevent a serious outbreak of the disease here in the United States... The key thing to understand about this disease is that these protocols work."
Meanwhile senior US lawmakers overseeing homeland security on Wednesday joined calls for authorities to impose a temporary ban on travel from West Africa, in order to prevent an Ebola outbreak.
"A temporary ban on travel to the United States from countries afflicted with the virus is something that the president should absolutely consider along with any other appropriate actions as doubts about the security of our air travel systems grow," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement.
House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul and several of his subcommittee chairs wrote to Homeland Security Department boss Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry urging them to take specific action, alleging that there are weaknesses in the US health care system.
"In light of these current vulnerabilities, we urge you to consider temporarily suspending the visas of individuals from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone until the outbreak is under control," wrote McCaul and five subcommittee chairs, all Republicans.
They also suggested that anyone who contracts Ebola in the US be transferred to one of four hospitals best prepared to handle such cases: Emory University Hospital in Georgia, the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, Nebraska Medical Center or the St Patrick Hospital in Montana.
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