My terrifying Ebola scare in Texas still haunts me. Now experts fear this deadly eye-bleeding virus is heading for the US... and no one is ready: LAURA COLLINS

By LAURA COLLINS, FEATURES EDITOR Published: 22:44, 27 May 2026 | Updated: 22:46, 27 May 2026 On Saturday October 4, 2014, at around 12.30pm, I found myself sitting in an isolation room in Texas Presbyterian Hospital Emergency Room. A few moments earlier the doctor on duty had waved from his desk outside my glass box, identifying himself as the medic speaking to me over the phone. He had placed a call to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), he explained, and was just waiting to hear back from them before deciding how to proceed. Under normal circumstances, the symptoms I was experiencing would not have brought me to an ER. I had started feeling unwell late the previous evening, was sweating through the night and woke up nauseated and with an upset stomach. Usually, I would have put it down to too much coffee or bad crab cakes. But these were not normal circumstances. I was in Dallas covering the first reported case of Ebola in the States. More than a decade on I remembered the experience as I read about the growing concern over the current outbreak of the virus ravaging the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – already it is suspected to have infected 1,000 and claimed more than 220 lives. That alone would be devastating enough but, more pressing for this country are the fears that are growing over the danger of the virus once again entering the US – and once again arriving in Texas - as fans and players from DRC contemplate traveling to Houston for the World Cup. The current outbreak of the virus ravaging the DRC is suspected to have infected 1,000 and claimed more than 220 lives A health worker in the DRC takes the temperature of a motorcyclist in May 2026 More pressing for this country are the fears that are growing over the danger of the virus once again entering the US – and once again arriving in Texas - as fans and players from DRC contemplate traveling to Houston for the World Cup. (Pictured: Players for the DRC team) The tournament is scheduled to kick off on June 1, with the DRC men's soccer team scheduled to play Portugal in Houston on June 17. Last Thursday the DRC team was forced to cancel their pre-tournament camp due to the outbreak described by the World Health Organization as a 'public health emergency of international concern.' The CDC has issued reassuring statements, saying it was working closely with FIFA on safety and screening measures. But the clock is ticking and ticking loudly. So, forgive me if I don't feel entirely comforted by their assertions. After all, I have witnessed firsthand the gulf between their calming statements and the chaos and confusion on the frontline the last time Ebola landed on American soil. Two days before I found myself sitting in that isolation room in Dallas all those years ago, I had landed in the city and headed straight for the home of Aaron Yah and Youngor Jallah. At the time I knew only that Yah had been quoted in reports speaking as a friend of Thomas Eric Duncan – the 42-year-old Liberian tourist who, on September 30, 2014, was confirmed as the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the America. The virus would go on to claim his life nine days later. The backstory to his diagnosis was a catalogue of confusion and missteps. Duncan had lied about his own contact with the virus in his home country before boarding a flight to Brussels – he had helped transfer his infected landlady by taxi to a treatment ward. She later died from the disease. From Brussels he flew to Washington Dulles and from there onto Dallas/Fort Worth arriving in Texas on September 20, 2014. Four days later, on September 24, he presented at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital with symptoms including a fever of 100.1F. No travel history was taken and while his temperature rose, he was diagnosed with sinusitis and sent home with a prescription for antibiotics. By September 28 he was back at the same hospital – this time arriving by ambulance and exhibiting catastrophic symptoms. Within 15 minutes, a doctor noted his travel history, and he was tested for Ebola. Two days later that test came back positive, and his diagnosis was publicly confirmed. It was immediately a national story with journalists from all over the country dispatched to Dallas. I was among them flying in from New York. More than a decade on I remembered my experience as I read about the growing concern over the current outbreak of the virus ravaging the Democratic Republic of Congo  Aaron Yah (left), husband of Youngor Jallah (right), had been quoted in reports speaking as a friend of Thomas Eric Duncan Duncan (pictured) was the 42-year-old Liberian tourist who, on September 30, 2014, was confirmed as the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the America. The virus would go on to claim his life nine days later Duncan had come to America to marry Louise Troh, 54, the woman he called the 'love of his life,' mother to their 19-year-old son, Kasiah Eric, and also, as it turned out, Youngor Jallah's mother. I didn't know when I knocked at Yah's door that he, Jallah and their four children, aged two, four, six and 11, had been in the Ivy Apartments home in which Duncan fell so violently ill. That's the thing about knocking on doors in the hope of finding information; you don't arrive forearmed with it. So, when Jallah said: 'We are about to pray. You can either come in or come back later,' I stepped inside. No journalist when presented with an open door allows it to close. It was only after I sat while Jah read sections of the bible; only after I witnessed Jallah exhorting God to destroy Ebola as tears rolled down her cheeks; only after I spoke with Yah at the family's table, their youngest child clinging to my leg, that I learned the truth. This family was not merely friends with Duncan. Jallah called him 'Daddy,' and on Sunday September 28, she had been the one who called the ambulance that took him back to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. It was Jallah, a nursing assistant, whom Troh called as Duncan's condition deteriorated so rapidly on Sunday morning. It was Jallah who had made him tea that he could not drink and wrapped him in a blanket as his temperature spiked to over 103 degrees. And it was Jallah, the woman with whom I was then sitting, who told the Emergency Responders that day to be careful because he had just arrived from West Africa. 'Viruses,' she said and at that they immediately put on their masks. But I didn't know any of that when I stepped into the family's small, dark apartment, and I didn't know that they were in isolation – instated by the CDC but entirely unexplained, unenforced and unsupported. Shockingly, two days after Duncan's diagnosis, the family was unclear as to just what they were and were not allowed to do. Could they go grocery shopping, they asked me? Nobody, they said, had checked in on them. (Ultimately, I would spend my days in Dallas bringing them food from the local African stores, their shopping list passed under the door outside which I would leave the full bags.) And so, when I felt unwell within two days of my visit – Ebola has an incubation period of between two and 21 days – I did what I would never usually do. I went to the doctor. Intellectually I knew the risks of my symptoms being related to my visit with the family were minuscule despite their risk of infection being considered high. Ebola is only contagious when the sufferer is showing symptoms. Even then there must be direct contact between bodily fluids and a point of entry – the mouth, nose, eyes, a cut or a graze. Logically I knew none of this applied. At least, I was pretty sure none of it applied. Once the risks of the situation had become clear, we had been meticulous about applying and reapplying antibacterial liquid in the house that day. Yah even wiped down my seat before I sat in it. I had drenched my iPhone and car steering wheel in the stuff when I left. But then there was that child coughing and that sneeze. And what about the little one at my ankles? I had a graze; children have sticky hands. The certainty of my logic was quickly eroded by a creeping anxiety. A person dressed in protective gear leaves the home of the second person diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas, Texas, on October 12, 2014 A suspected Ebola patient arriving to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on October 8, 2014 On Saturday October 4, 2014, at around 12.30pm, I found myself sitting in an isolation room in Texas Presbyterian Hospital Emergency Room The procedure for treating Ebola patients is demonstrated at the Royal Free Hospital in London, England, in 2014 In the end, I reasoned, that if I DID have cause for worry then not getting it checked out would be unforgivably irresponsible and place others at risk. So that Saturday morning I filed my article and drove myself to the hospital. The flicker of fear in the receptionist's eyes as she thrust a surgical mask towards me, having first placed one on herself and handed one to her colleague at the desk beside her, was disconcerting. Then came the blue overalls, the hat, the tunic, the gloves and apron. She handed me a thermometer while urgently trying to contact 'Angel' on the telephone. Angel seemed to be the one who everybody was sure would know what to do. The thermometer was removed from my mouth, read with a grim expression, and I was ushered through to what appeared to be an entirely deserted ward. I was shown into an examination room, its glass door sealed behind me, and left to ponder the anxiety-inducing notion that everybody here appeared to be taking this very seriously. And as I sat there at the end of the bed, dry-mouthed and woozy, I listened to the conversation I could hear between the nurses beyond my door. They were discussing what they were meant to do with me and specifically what they were meant to do when it came to putting on their protective clothing. They were toing and froing about how many layers they should wear and in what order they should put each item on. Crucially, they were going over what the protocol was as far as removing that clothing was concerned: in what order did each item come off and what should be bleached when everything was disposed of? It struck me there and then. This was the hospital at the heart of the crisis, at the epicenter of the first Ebola outbreak on US soil – ground zero, five days on - and despite the hospital and the CDC's public statements that all was in hand, they didn't know. 'So, it's booties, then gloves?' one asked. 'Or gloves first then bleach?' 'Bleach, bleach,' another reminded. 'And should I just use tape?' Several days later, I would recall their discussion about tape with a ripple of unease as the news broke that two of the nurses who cared for Duncan - first Nina Pham then Amber Jay Vinson - had tested positive for Ebola. Soon after, the Director of the National Nurses Union, RoseAnn DeMoro, spoke out to directly contradict the CDC's claim that it was a breach in protocol that led to Pham's infection. She claimed that more than one healthcare worker had told of using surgical tape to seal their protective clothing at the neck – tape that they found difficult to remove safely. Nurse Briana Aguirre, who helped care for Pham, told of how although protective gear had been upgraded from the original mask, gown, gloves and booties - there was a gap of several inches at the neck. When she asked why her neck was exposed, she was told to cover the gap with strips of one-inch tape. Accounts emerged of contaminated waste left to pile 'ceiling high' in the room where Duncan was treated, of nurses who cared for him attending to other patients, of protocols not in place and health professionals unprepared and unprotected. Texas Presbyterian vigorously defended itself against the complaints allegedly made by members of their staff, claiming that all CDC protocols had been followed. Briana Aguirre, who helped care for Pham, once told of how although protective gear had been upgraded from the original mask, gown, gloves and booties - there was a gap of several inches at the neck Bellevue Hospital staff dressed in protective gear demonstrate proper protocol in New York City in 2014 But from what I observed in my isolation room that day, the revelations of chaos were entirely and horribly credible. There was no clear protocol – or at least not one with which the medics in my purview appeared to be familiar to protect themselves and contain the virus killing a man in his hospital bed just a few floors away. After much debate a nurse entered my room, swathed in protective clothing - face mask, visor, gloves, booties, apron, gown, hood. She took my temperature. It was 99.5 degrees, the same 'low level fever' that nurse Vinson – exposed to the virus - was running when the CDC cleared her to board a commercial flight from Dallas to Cleveland six days later, on October 10. Back in my isolation room, the nurse told me she was wearing three layers of everything – including gloves - and she apologized for fumbling as she attached a clip to my finger to hook me up to a monitor to read my heart rate. But at the end of the examination – before any word had come back from CDC - she stood right next to me, working through each protective layer and removing them one by one, rubbing what she was still wearing with bleach and doing the same with the discarded one before placing it in a container. I couldn't help wondering at the time, shouldn't there be some sort of double seal in all of this? A space between me and the ward in which all this should happen? Why bother getting suited up before coming in if you're going to take everything off and be completely exposed before leaving? Was that happening at Duncan's bedside? After what seemed like an eternity, the doctor to whom I had spoken via phone came in to tell me that he had heard back from the CDC, and they did not believe anybody in the community was infectious. He said he would add my name to the CDC's watch list and instructed me to come back and get checked out again 'if my condition worsened.' (Advice handed to Duncan when he first left the hospital with his pointless prescription for antibiotics.) A couple of days later a nurse from the ER telephoned to see whether my condition had indeed deteriorated. I was sitting in a parking lot in Dallas. I was both touched by the follow-up and consumed by questions: What if it had? Why had they let me walk out if they thought there was even the vaguest possibility that it might? Where was the 'abundance of caution' of which both the hospital and the CDC so freely spoke? Wasn't this the same ER that had let a patient walk out only to return with such devastating consequences two days later when his condition had indeed worsened? It's the memory of that – the gap between the words and the reality which I both witnessed and on which I reported more than a decade ago - that gives me pause today. One can only hope that lessons have indeed been learned - and perhaps, post pandemic, we are all more familiar with PPE protocol than any of us ever wanted to be.  But, should the unthinkable happen and Ebola once again find its way into Texas, I hope this time authorities will be ready. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? 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