Ebola

NEW YORK — Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died from the virus Wednesday while in isolation at a Dallas hospital, ending a case that helped bring into sharp focus the nation's risk from the disease.

Directors of 10 public hospitals in Costa Rica's Social Security System, or Caja, on Wednesday said they are implementing preventive measures to detect and, if necessary, handle possible cases of the Ebola virus here. The announcement followed confirmation Tuesday of the first case of Ebola in the United States.

SAN SALVADOR – As a precaution against Ebola, El Salvador has quarantined two nuns who arrived in the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Health Minister Violeta Menjivar said Thursday.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States has diagnosed its first case of the deadly Ebola virus, a man who became infected in Liberia and traveled to Texas, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS – World leaders gathered at the United Nations heard dire warnings and desperate pleas for assistance Thursday as the deadly Ebola virus forced Sierra Leone to quarantine a million people.

"We are so much at the breaking point," said Joanne Liu, international director for the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders. "My people are telling me, 'We don't know how much longer we're going to last.' "

Ebola is now spreading from the remote provinces and into the teeming cities such as Freetown, where 1.2 million people jostle for space. Previous outbreaks had been limited to remote villages, where containment was aided by geography. The thought of Ebola taking hold in a major city such as Freetown or Monrovia, Liberia's capital, is a virological nightmare.

Tim Callaghan and Phil Gelman were both involved in relief efforts in one of the most high-profile, horrific disasters in the Western Hemisphere in the last five years: the Haiti earthquake and cholera outbreak in 2010.