In a final-week burst of campaigning, President Barack Obama sought to mobilize Democratic voters Thursday in the race for governor in Maine while keeping his distance from the state's bubbling controversy over its Ebola policies and the nurse who has defied them.

Obama was headlining a rally in Portland for Mike Michaud, a six-term congressman who is running to unseat Republican Gov. Paul LePage in a neck-and-neck race. Independent candidate Eliot Cutler is running a distant third.

The president, who has been praising health care workers who have volunteered to fight Ebola in West Africa, had no plans to visit with Kaci Hickox, the returning nurse who is challenging a state requirement that she isolate herself for 21 days.

Hickox worked in West Africa with Doctors Without Borders. She returned to the U.S. last week but has shown no symptoms of the disease. She has been under what the state has called a voluntary quarantine in remote northern Maine, but on Thursday she went on bike ride with her boyfriend.

Obama has urged states to consider how their policies will affect the willingness of other doctors and nurses to volunteer for Ebola work in the afflicted nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

"We believe that those decisions should be driven by science but ultimately it's state and local officials that have the authority for implementing these policies," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday.

As for next Tuesday's elections, Democrats in Maine hoped the visit by Obama so close to Election Day would help put Michaud over the top.

Michaud picked up a pre-Obama boost Wednesday with an endorsement from Angus King, Maine's independent U.S. senator. King originally had endorsed the independent, Cutler, but switched after Cutler said anyone who didn't believe he could win should vote for someone else.

Obama is the latest top Democrat to campaign for Michaud, following appearances by first lady Michelle Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

For the most part, the president has avoided appearing in public with Democratic candidates. He is unpopular in some states where competitive Senate races will help determine control in Congress for the two years Obama has left in office. Democrats have the Senate majority, but would lose it if Republicans gain six seats.

Instead, Obama has been aggressively raising money for Democratic candidates. Before Thursday's rally, he was attending a Democratic National Committee fundraiser with about 25 supporters who gave $16,200 and more to attend the round-table event at the Cape Elizabeth home of Michaud supporters Bob Monks and Bonnie Porta. The event was closed to media coverage.

Obama is also being featured in new radio commercials for House races in Nevada and Arizona and a gubernatorial contest in Maryland.

"I know that sometimes politics can seem focused on small things. Middle class families need their leaders to do big things," he said in a commercial airing in Nevada. He added, "But your congressman, Steven Horsford, hasn't let Washington gridlock get in his way."

In another radio ad, Obama says "hello" and "goodbye" in Navajo, part of an appeal to tribal voters to support Democrats.

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KANSAS-SENATE

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, facing a difficult re-election challenge from independent Greg Orman, vowed to prevent Obama from transferring terrorist suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Obama has not recently mentioned Fort Leavenworth as a destination, but Roberts said Orman can't be trusted to stand up to the president. The fort is in eastern Kansas, not far from Kansas City.

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GEORGIA-SENATE

Republican David Perdue and Democrat Michelle Nunn each released new television advertisements as they pushed for a clear majority next Tuesday to avoid a Jan. 6 runoff.

Perdue's commercial seeks to link Nunn to Obama, who twice lost Georgia when he ran for the White House.

Nunn countered with a commercial in which she promised to be a pragmatic senator, and told voters her career has been about "living out her faith by trying to help others."

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RHODE ISLAND-GOVERNOR

In Providence, Michelle Obama urged voters to "get it done" for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Raimondo, saying Thursday that the race is close and Raimondo needs every vote.

The first lady is the second major Democrat to visit Rhode Island to campaign for Raimondo, the general treasurer, in the final days of her race against Republican Allan Fung. Hillary Clinton campaigned with Raimondo last week at Rhode Island College.

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MICHIGAN-HOUSE

Republican Rep. Fred Upton, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is locked in a closer-than-expected race as Mayday PAC, a crowd-funded political action committee determined to reduce the influence of money in politics, is spending more than $2 million to defeat the 14-term incumbent.

Upton faces a challenge from Democrat Paul Clements. The Republican lawmaker won by 12 percentage points in 2012 and polls show he still remains popular in the Kalamazoo-based district.


AP

Mandatory quarantines ordered by some U.S. states on doctors and nurses returning from West Africa's Ebola outbreak are creating a "chilling effect" on Doctors Without Borders operations there, the humanitarian group said on Thursday.

In response to questions from Reuters, the group said it is discussing whether to shorten some assignments as a result of restrictions imposed by some states since one of its American doctors, Craig Spencer, was hospitalized in New York City last week with the virus.

"There is rising anxiety and confusion among MSF staff members in the field over what they may face when they return home upon completion of their assignments in West Africa," Sophie Delaunay, executive director of Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement emailed to Reuters. Doctors Without Borders is also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF.

Some MSF workers are delaying their return home after their assignments and staying in Europe for 21 days, Ebola's maximum incubation period, "in order to avoid facing rising stigmatization at home and possible quarantine," Delaunay said in her statement.

"Some people are being discouraged by their families from returning to the field," she said.

The governors of New York and New Jersey announced strict new screening rules at airports last Friday, including mandatory 21-day quarantines for any healthcare worker who had been treating Ebola patients in West Africa.

Only one person is known to have been quarantined as a result of the new rules, nurse Kaci Hickox, who was confined to a tent against her will for several days after arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey last Friday. Hickox, 33, was returning from Sierra Leone, where she had cared for Ebola patients as an MSF healthcare worker.

Hickox, who tested negative for Ebola and says she is completely healthy, has strongly criticized the quarantine policy in New Jersey and then in her home state of Maine, where she was taken to finish her 21-day quarantine at home.

She went for a bike ride on Thursday, putting her on a collision course with Maine Governor Paul LePage, whose office said he would exercise his legal authority to keep her quarantined.

reuters

 The nurse who was quarantined at a New Jersey hospital because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa criticized the way her case has been handled, raising concerns from humanitarian and human rights groups over unclear policies for the newly launched quarantine program.

Kaci Hickox, the first traveler quarantined under Ebola watches in New Jersey and New York, wrote the first-person account for the Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/1w4Vi4J), which was posted on the paper's website Saturday. Her preliminary tests for Ebola came back negative.

"This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me," Hickox wrote of her quarantine. "I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine. ... The U.S. must treat returning health care workers with dignity and humanity."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday imposed a mandatory quarantine of 21 days — the incubation period of the deadly virus — on travelers who have had contact with Ebola patients in the countries ravaged by Ebola — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. A similar measure was announced in Illinois, where officials say such travelers could be quarantined at home.

The hazy details of how such quarantines will be handled are drawing sharp criticism as infectious disease experts say enforcement logistics are up in the air. Health officials in all three states with quarantine policies did not return messages from The Associated Press seeking details about enforcement.

Cuomo on Saturday acknowledged that the policy might be hard to enforce, according to the New York Daily News.

The governor said officials had never considered whether people refusing to go along with the order could face prosecution or arrest, adding "It's nothing that we've discussed, no," the newspaper said.

In her essay, Hickox described being stopped at Newark Liberty International and questioned over several hours after touching down Friday. She said none of those who questioned her would explain what was going on or what would happen to her.

Hickox is a nurse who had been working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. Officials said she was taken to a hospital after developing a fever, but Hickox said she was merely flushed because she was upset by the process. Hickox remained isolated in a building adjacent to the hospital, state health department officials said Sunday.

Doctors Without Borders executive director Sophie Delaunay complained Saturday about the "notable lack of clarity" from state officials about the quarantine policies, and an American Civil Liberties Union official in New Jersey said the state must provide more information on how it determined that mandatory quarantines were necessary.

"Coercive measures like mandatory quarantine of people exhibiting no symptoms of Ebola and when not medically necessary raise serious constitutional concerns about the state abusing its powers," said Udi Ofer, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey.

Doctors Without Borders said Hickox has not been issued an order of quarantine specifying how long she must be isolated and is being kept in an unheated tent. It urged the "fair and reasonable treatment" of health workers fighting the Ebola outbreak.

"We are attempting to clarify the details of the protocols with each state's departments of health to gain a full understanding of their requirements and implications," Delaunay said in a statement.

Christie, campaigning Saturday in Iowa for a fellow Republican, said he sympathizes for Hickox but said he has to do what he can to ensure public health safety.

"My heart goes out to her," the governor said, while also noting that state and local health officials would make sure quarantine rules are enforced. He said the New Jersey State Police won't be involved.

Health officials said preliminary tests for Ebola came back negative for Hickox but Newark University Hospital would not say if she would be released for the balance of the quarantine period or remain in the hospital.

In the very early stages of Ebola, patients may still test negative because the virus has not yet reached detectable levels in the blood. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it may take up to three days after the onset of symptoms for the virus to reach detectable levels in some patients, prompting repeat testing in some cases.

Hickox's mother, Karen Hickox, said Saturday her daughter probably wasn't expecting to be quarantined upon her return to the United States, but is dealing with it.

"I spoke with her (Friday and Saturday)," she said. "She was more frustrated (Friday) but there were some tears (Saturday) ... If you knew her, she's a very compassionate person but she doesn't usually get emotional."

The quarantine measures were announced after a New York physician, Craig Spencer, working for Doctors Without Borders returned from Guinea was admitted to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital Center earlier this week to be treated for Ebola. Hospital officials said Saturday he was experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms and "entering the next phase of his illness."

A senior White House official said Saturday that how to treat health care workers returning from the affected West African countries continues to be discussed at meetings on Ebola as the administration continues to take a "careful look" at its policies.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, a Columbia University professor and director of the New York-based National Center for Disaster Preparedness, said the logistics of the states' new quarantine policy are "a problem."

"The challenge now is how you translate this quarantine plan to operational protocol," Redlener said.

He warned that quarantines might discourage doctors and nurses from going to West Africa to help, an issue raised by aid groups and Dr. Rick Sacra, one of the American health care workers successfully treated for Ebola contracted while he worked in Liberia.

"Until Ebola is under control in Africa, we're never going to see the end of such cases coming to the United States," Redlener said.

ap

News of New York's first case of Ebola was met with worry and even anger on Friday, but for this city of eight million residents, seasoned by everything from terror attacks to superstorms, there was little sign of panic.

Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, was moved with elaborate precautions from his Harlem apartment to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan with a fever and tested positive for Ebola on Thursday, sparking concern about the spread of the disease in the country's most populous city.

Despite reassurances from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo that it was perfectly safe to use the city's vast subway system, New Yorkers riding the trains were uneasy on Friday. Spencer had ridden the subway, eaten out, taken a cab and gone bowling in Brooklyn since returning from Guinea a week ago but before showing symptoms.

"I am worried. It feels as if doctors' arrogance has put us all in danger. Why wouldn't you make sure it was safe before you started running round the city," said Amelia Fowler, 38, an actor waiting at a bus stop in Brooklyn on Friday.

After taking his own temperature twice a day since his return, Spencer reported running a fever and experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms for the first time early on Thursday. He was not feeling sick and would not have been contagious before Thursday morning, the city's Health Commissioner Mary Travis Bassett said.

Owners of the bowling alley he visited said they had voluntarily closed it for the day as a precaution, but the health department said it had given the site a clean bill of health after testing. Officials also gave the all clear to one of the eateries he visited, and were assessing the second.

The driver of the ride-sharing taxi Spencer took was not considered to be at risk, and officials insisted the three subway lines he rode before falling ill remained safe.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it had not removed any trains from service but had updated some of its health protocols including issuing gloves and disinfectant to deal with any potentially infectious waste. Seeking to reassure New Yorkers, De Blasio rode the subway Friday morning, chatting with passengers.

Still, many expressed worry and frustration on their way to work, fretting about using a mass transit system that for many is the only form of daily transport.

"I ride the train to work - I have to," said Ruth Bowtle, 48, a paralegal from Staten Island. "But I am trying not to hold onto the hand rail. You try not to breathe."

Some medical supply stores, including Chelsea Mobility and Medical Equipment in Manhattan, were stocking up on masks, thermometers and hand sanitizers in anticipation of a run on the goods by the public, similar to the response seen during the bird flu epidemic in 2009.

Heightened security was in place at Bellevue Hospital where Spencer was being treated, with police officers and metal gates keeping a large crowd of reporters and television crews at bay.

Some patients and visiting relatives brushed off the idea of Spencer representing a threat. Teresa Jurado, however, said she dreaded going inside the hospital where she had an appointment to treat a chronic stomach illness.

"I'm in a state of psychosis," the retired 80-year-old Queens resident said. "For one person, we're all going to fall sick."

But for all the bluster, many New Yorkers went about their business on Friday, largely unfazed. The major subway stations were busy. Commuters clutching newspapers declaring Ebola's arrival piled onto packed subway trains and buses, much like any other morning.

The U.S. stock market rose on Friday, recovering the losses suffered on news on Thursday afternoon that Spencer had been taken to hospital, as strong earnings outweighed any fear of the virus spreading.

Some residents said they were far more concerned about flu than Ebola. Others displayed total indifference.

"There is not really a chance of it spreading," said Omar Abdul, 58, a taxi driver slouched in his cab in Park Slope, Brooklyn. "It is not like everyone who gets into my cab has come from Africa."

(AP) — As her boyfriend Thomas Eric Duncan lay dying of Ebola in a Dallas hospital bed, Louise Troh battled loneliness and fear that she too had contracted the disease while confined to a stranger's home under armed guard.

Troh's confinement was ending Sunday night, along with several friends, family and others who had contact with Duncan after he first became infectious. Ebola has a 21-day incubation period, and the people who interacted with Duncan after he first arrived in Dallas from Liberia will be in the clear.

It's an important milestone in the nation's efforts to contain the outbreak and a cause for celebration for Troh. After three long weeks, she will be able to have a clean bill of health, leave the house and be done with twice-daily temperature readings by government health care workers. She likened the period to being a prisoner.

"I want to breathe, I want to really grieve, I want privacy with my family," Troh told The Associated Press on Friday, lamenting that she was missing Duncan's memorial service at his mother's church in North Carolina because of the quarantine. Troh says she and Duncan planned to get married later in the week.

Duncan arrived in Dallas from Liberia in late September and went to the hospital complaining of headache and stomach pain. He was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics to treat a misdiagnosed sinus infection. He returned two days later, was diagnosed with Ebola and died Oct. 8.

The day Duncan tested positive for Ebola, Troh, her 13-year-old son, Duncan's nephew and a family friend were ordered by a Dallas court to stay inside the apartment among Duncan's used linens and any lingering virus. The unusual confinement order was imposed after the family failed to comply with a request not to leave the apartment, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said. The four were later taken to an undisclosed gated community.

Jenkins and Troh's pastor George Mason delivered the news of Duncan's death to her during the confinement period.

The other people who will have their quarantine period end at midnight include Youngor Jallah, Troh's daughter, a nurse's assistant who checked Duncan's vital signs before calling for an ambulance.

For nearly three weeks, Jallah has not left the cramped, second-story apartment she shares with her partner, Aaron Yah, their three children, ages 2, 4 and 6, and Yah's 10-year-old son.

Unlike Troh, Jallah is not prevented from leaving by an armed guard, but Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have come by daily to check everyone's temperature.

"I'm telling you, just to step outside will be so great. To hug my mom and grieve for Eric, not over the phone like we've been doing but in the flesh," Jallah said.

Mason said he is coordinating efforts with the city, county and philanthropic community to help Troh and the family recover. Because of the Ebola infection risk, crews stripped Troh's apartment down to the carpeting, saving only a few personal documents, photographs and a Bible.

"They were left with nothing. They are completely devastated by this, so there's need to have their lives rebuilt," Mason said.

Troh plans to partially recover financially with a book written about her life, from growing up in Liberia, meeting Duncan in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast, Duncan's years-long quest to come to America to be reunited with his girlfriend and their 19-year-old son, and his death in an isolation ward.

"It will be a love story," she said.

Troh also issued a statement Sunday asking for privacy as she comes through the ordeal while thanking everyone who came to their side.

At Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas on Sunday, associate pastor Mark Wingfield said the congregation was eager to welcome Troh back.

"We look forward to welcoming Louise and her family members back to church after the quarantine is lifted and we want you to know that when that happens we will be glad to receive each one of them," he said.

(AP) — President Barack Obama says "the world is not doing enough" to fight Ebola.

Obama suggested to reporters Tuesday that he plans to reach out to foreign leaders to pressure them to do more. He spoke at the end of a meeting with U.S. and allied military leaders primarily focused on the threat from Islamic State militants.

Obama says the United States will continue to do its part to fight the deadly disease. But he said, "Everybody's going to have to do more than they are doing right now."

Obama also offered thoughts and prayers to the nurse being treated for Ebola after she tended to a Liberian man visiting Dallas. Obama says he wants to make sure lessons learned from that case are applied to health centers around the U.S.

(AP) — A Texas health care worker has tested positive for Ebola even though she wore full protective gear while caring for a hospitalized patient who later died from the virus, health officials said Sunday. If the preliminary diagnosis is confirmed, it would be the first known case of the disease being contracted or transmitted in the U.S.

Dr. Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the diagnosis shows there was a clear breach of safety protocol and all those who treated Thomas Eric Duncan are now considered to be potentially exposed.

The worker wore a gown, gloves, mask and shield while she cared for Duncan during his second visit to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, said Dr. Daniel Varga of Texas Health Resources, which runs the hospital. Frieden said the worker has not been able to identify a specific breach of protocol that might have led to her being infected.

Duncan, who arrived in the U.S. from Liberia to visit family on Sept. 20, first sought medical care for fever and abdominal pain on Sept. 25. He told a nurse he had traveled from Africa, but he was sent home. He returned Sept. 28 and was placed in isolation because of suspected Ebola. He died Wednesday.

More than 4,000 people have died in the ongoing Ebola epidemic centered in West Africa, according to World Health Organization figures published Friday. Almost all of those deaths have been in the three worst-affected countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Texas health officials have been closely monitoring nearly 50 people who had or may have had close contact with Duncan in the days after he started showing symptoms.

Varga says the health care worker reported a fever Friday night as part of a self-monitoring regimen required by the CDC. He said another person is in isolation, and the hospital has stopped accepting new emergency room patients.

"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. "We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread."

But Frieden on Sunday raised concerns about a possible breach of safety protocol and told CBS' "Face the Nation" that among the things CDC will investigate is how the workers took off that gear, because removing it incorrectly can lead to contamination. Investigators will also look at dialysis and intubation, procedures with the potential for spreading infectious material.

Officials said they also received information that there may be a pet in the health care worker's apartment, and they have a plan in place to care for the animal. They do not believe the pet has signs of having contracted Ebola.

Health care workers treating Ebola patients are among the most vulnerable, even if wearing protective gear. A Spanish nurse assistant recently became the first health care worker infected outside west Africa during the ongoing outbreak: she helped care for a missionary priest who was brought to a Madrid hospital. More than 370 health care workers in west Africa have fallen ill or died in west Africa since epidemic began earlier this year.

Ebola spreads through close contact with a symptomatic person's bodily fluids, such as blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen. Those fluids must have an entry point, like a cut or scrape or someone touching the nose, mouth or eyes with contaminated hands, or being splashed. The World Health Organization says blood, feces and vomit are the most infectious fluids, while the virus is found in saliva mostly once patients are severely ill. The whole live virus has never been culled from sweat.

Duncan, the first person in the U.S. diagnosed with Ebola, came to Dallas to attend the high-school graduation of his son, who was born in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast and brought to the U.S. as a toddler when his mother successfully applied for resettlement.

The trip was the culmination of decades of effort, friends and family members said. But when Duncan arrived in Dallas, though he showed no symptoms, he had already been exposed to Ebola. His neighbors in Liberia believe Duncan become infected when he helped a pregnant neighbor who later died from it. It was unclear if he knew about her diagnosis before traveling.

(Reuters) - A Spanish nurse who is the first person to contract Ebola outside of Africa may have touched her face with the gloves of her protective suit while caring for a priest who died of the disease, a doctor treating her said on Wednesday.

The nurse, Teresa Romero, was being treated for the deadly infection at a Madrid hospital while Spanish officials launched an investigation into how she was able to contract Ebola despite strict protocols for handling contagious patients.

The virus, which the World Health Organization said had killed 3,879 people by Oct. 5 in West Africa since March in the largest outbreak of the disease on record, causes haemorrhagic fever and is spread through direct contact with body fluids from an infected person.

A Liberian man who was the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States died in a hospital isolation ward on Wednesday and the U.S. government ordered extra screenings at five major airports.

The WHO said it saw no evidence of the disease being brought under control in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, with neighbouring countries being told to prepare for the disease to spread across their borders.

Britain said it was sending extra troops, aircraft and a naval vessel to Sierra Leone to help stem the spread. The deployment will see 750 military personnel help set up treatment centres and a training facility. Three helicopters and a 100-bed naval hospital will also be sent to the region.

INTERNET DISCOVERY

While Romero is the only confirmed Ebola case in Spain aside from two priests who contracted the disease in Africa and died, more than 50 other people who may have had contact with the virus in the country are being monitored, including primary health care and hospital staff, European officials said.

"She has talked to me about the gloves, she touched her face with the gloves. That's what she remembers and what she has told me three times," German Ramirez, one of the doctors at Carlos III hospital where the nurse is being treated, told reporters.

The nurse took leave from work immediately after Spanish missionary Manuel Garcia died on Sept. 25. Wearing a full protective suit, she had entered the priest's room once while he was alive and once after his death to clean the room.

"I believe the error was made when taking off the suit," she told Spain's El Pais newspaper in a telephone interview published on Wednesday. "I see that as the most critical moment, when something could have happened. But I'm not sure."

Health worker union officials said Romero alerted hospital staff three times to say she had a fever and a rash, but because her temperature had not gone above 38.6 degrees Celsius the hospital did not see her as a risk.

Romero found out she had the disease by looking at the news on the Internet on her phone while she was waiting for the result of her test, she told Cuatro television station in a telephone interview.

"I asked the doctor for the result and he didn't answer in a very clear way and that's when I started to suspect," adding she then looked at her phone to find there was a positive case of Ebola in Spain.

Health authorities on Thursday put down the dog, a labrador-type breed called Excalibur, who lived with the nurse and her husband in a suburban Madrid flat, saying it posed a biological risk and there was evidence dogs could carry the virus.

The dog was taken out of the apartment block in a police-protected van with the windows blacked out and a driver in a protective suit while around 30 animal rights activists shouted "Murderers!".

The childless couple are two of six people under observation in the sealed-off sixth floor of the hospital in Madrid. The rest of the people, including other nurses who cared for the infected priests, have initially tested negative for Ebola, health authorities said.

Other people being monitored include two hairdressers who waxed the nurse as part of a beauty treatment, media reports said.

CALLS FOR CALM

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy defended his country's health authorities and urged people not to panic.

"We have to keep calm. It is extremely unlikely that this will turn into an outbreak affecting many people," he said.

Rajoy said he had created a committee to oversee co-ordination between the regional Madrid government, the central government and European institutions. He said Spain was in constant contact with the European Union and the World Health Organization.

"Let the professionals do their work," he said. "The Spanish health system is one of the best in the world."

He said the investigation into how the infection had occurred was a priority and was still under way.

Two experts from the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the region, have gone to Spain to help with the investigation, a spokesman for the European Commission said.

The spokesman said Spanish authorities had told the EU it was not clear at this stage how the infection had occurred, but it may have been due to "possible relaxation" of protocols for handling the corpse or for the disposal of medical waste.

The Commission's health security committee gathered representatives from all EU states, the ECDC and from the World Health Organisation's European regional headquarters to discuss the situation on Wednesday.

The WHO's Europe director Zsuzsanna Jakab told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday it was "unavoidable" that Europe would see more cases of Ebola within its borders because of busy travel links with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

She stressed, however, that the continent was well prepared for handling Ebola virus disease, and said she did not expect to see any widespread outbreaks in European countries.

A new World Bank assessment of the potential impact of the epidemic estimated that if it spread wider from the three states into neighbouring larger economies, the two-year regional financial impact could reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015.

(Reuters) - British-American John O'Keefe and Norwegians May-Britt and Edvard Moser won the 2014 Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering the brain's navigation system and giving clues as to how strokes and Alzheimer's disrupt it.

The Nobel Assembly, which awarded the prize of 8 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million) at Sweden's Karolinska Institute on Monday, said the discovery solved a problem that had occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries:

"How does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment?"

Ole Kiehn, a Nobel committee member and professor in Karolinska's neuroscience department, said the three scientists had found "an inner GPS that makes it possible to know where we are and find our way".

O'Keefe, now director at the center in neural circuits and behavior at University College London (UCL), discovered the first element of the positioning system in 1971 when he found that a type of nerve cell in a brain region called the hippocampus was always activated when a rat was in a certain place in a room.

Seeing that other nerve cells were activated when the rat was in other positions, O´Keefe concluded that these "place cells" formed a map of the room.

Uta Frith, a UCL professor of cognitive development said O'Keefe had shown "it is possible to literally map the mind".

"He has done much more than discovering neuronal mechanisms in the brain: he has discovered cognitive mechanisms that explain how human beings and other animals navigate," she said. "This beautiful work is heralding a new age of exploration of brain and mind."

In 1996, Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser, who are married and now based in scientific institutes in the Norwegian town of Trondheim, worked with O'Keefe to learn how to record the activity of cells in the hippocampus.

Nearly a decade later, the Moser team discovered cells, in the entorhinal cortex region in brains of rats, which function as a navigation system. These so-called "grid cells", they discovered, are constantly working to create a map of the outside world and are responsible for animals' knowing where they are, where they have been, and where they are going.

Bill Harris, head of physiology, development and neuroscience at Britain's University of Cambridge, said the scientists' work "has not only revolutionized our understanding of this amazing puzzle (the brain), but has also opened the door into problems of place memory and how we learn and remember routes of navigation, and what sleep and dreams may be doing for memory and performance."

"STATE OF SHOCK"

While the findings help explain how the brain works, they have no immediate implications for new medicines or other therapies, since they do not set out a mechanism of action.

But knowledge about the brain's positioning system can also help understanding of what causes loss of spatial awareness in stroke patients or those with devastating brain diseases like dementia, of which Alzheimer's is the most common form and which affects 44 million people worldwide.

O'Keefe told reporters in London he was very surprised to get the Nobel Prize, particularly after what he described as a "checkered youth" jumping from studying classics at school, then aeronautics at college before getting into philosophy and psychology.

"I'm still in a state of shock," he said.

May-Britt Moser danced and drank champagne with her colleagues in Trondheim after she was told of the award.

"This is so great, this is crazy. I am just jumping, screaming," Moser told Reuters. "I am so proud of all the support that we have had. People have believed in us, in what we have been doing and now this is the reward."

Norwegian TV showed her co-workers singing "Happy Nobel to you" to the tune of "Happy Birthday".

Her husband did not immediately learn that he had won the Nobel Prize as he was on a plane bound to Munich. Someone was waiting for him at Munich airport with flowers and gave him the news, he told the Norwegian news agency NTB.

The Mosers join a small club of married couples to win a Nobel Prize that includes Pierre Curie and Marie Curie.

John Stein, an emeritus professor of physiology at Oxford said that, as with so many Nobel Prize winners, the scientists' discovery was at first ridiculed and dismissed, only later to get the recognition it warrants

"This is great news and well deserved," Stein said. "I remember how great was the scoffing in the early 1970s when John first described 'place cells'. 'Bound to be an artefact' and 'he clearly underestimates rats' sense of smell' were typical reactions. Now, like so many ideas that were at first highly controversial, people say: 'Well that's obvious'!"

(AP) — An American photojournalist who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia is expected to arrive Monday in Nebraska where he will be treated for the virus that has ravaged West Africa.

Ashoka Mukpo, 33, will be the second Ebola patient to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center's specialized isolation unit. Mukpo was working in Liberia as a freelance cameraman for NBC News when he became ill last week.

NBC reported Sunday evening that Mukpo had started his journey to the U.S. for treatment and that he would arrive Monday morning. Mukpo's family said Friday he would be treated in Omaha. Hospital officials said they expected an Ebola patient to arrive Monday, but declined to provide a name.

Mukpo is the fifth American to return to the United States for treatment since the start of the latest Ebola outbreak, which the World Health Organization estimates has killed more than 3,400 people.

The hospital's biocontainment unit was created in 2005 specifically to handle this kind of illness, said Dr. Phil Smith, who oversees the unit.

"We are ready, willing and able to care for this patient," Smith said. "We consider it our duty to give these American citizens the best possible care we can."

Mukpo's father, Dr. Mitchell Levy, told NBC Sunday that his son was "counting the minutes" until he could leave Liberia but that he was not feeling that ill Sunday. Levy said the family was travelling from Rhode Island to Nebraska.

Doctors at the isolation unit — the largest of four nationwide — will evaluate Mukpo before determining how to treat him. They said they will apply the lessons learned while treating American aid worker Rick Sacra in September. Sacra was successfully treated in the Nebraska unit and was allowed to return to his home in Massachusetts after three weeks, on Sept. 25.

Sacra received an experimental Tekmira Pharmaceuticals drug called TKM-Ebola, as well as two blood transfusions from another American aid worker who recovered from Ebola at an Atlanta hospital. The transfusions are believed to help a patient fight off the virus because the survivor's blood carries antibodies for the disease. Sacra also received supportive care, including IV fluids and aggressive electrolyte management.

In Dallas, another man who recently traveled to the U.S. from Liberia was listed in critical condition Sunday. Thomas Eric Duncan has been hospitalized at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital since Sept. 28. Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he was aware that Duncan's health had "taken a turn for the worse," but he declined to describe Duncan's condition further.

The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — of an infected person who is showing symptoms.

Duncan arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and fell ill a few days later. Officials say 10 people definitely had close contact with Duncan and a further 38 may have been around him when he was showing symptoms of the disease.

Before he was admitted to the hospital, Duncan stayed with Louise Troh, her 13-year-old son and two nephews in their northeast Dallas apartment. The family has been kept in isolation in an undisclosed location since Friday and a hazardous materials crew has twice decontaminated their home. No one in the family has developed Ebola symptoms.

On Sunday, Troh told The Associated Press that she was afraid the crew might damage or destroy some irreplaceable keepsakes that she was forced to leave at the apartment, including photographs and recordings of her daughter, a singer, who died in childbirth.

"If they throw out her picture, her recordings, I'll be hurt. Her live CD's in there. That's all I have to show her children in the future. I don't want to miss it," she said in a phone interview.