The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Sunday that a Texas health care worker has tested positive for Ebola — the first case contracted on American soil.

“This development is understandably disturbing news for the patient, the patient’s family and colleagues and the greater Dallas community,” the CDC said in a statement.

A second possible Ebola case in Texas

“The CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services remain confident that wider spread in the community can be prevented with proper public health measures.”

The new case in Texas indicated a professional lapse that may have caused other health workers at the hospital to be infected as well, said the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“We don’t know what occurred in the care of the index patient, the original patient, in Dallas, but at some point there was a breach in protocol, and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection,” CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden told a news conference.

Hospital officials said the worker had been wearing CDC-recommended protective gear during treatment, including gowns, gloves, masks and shields.

“We are evaluating other potential healthcare worker exposures because if this individual was exposed, which they were, it is possible that other individuals were exposed,” Frieden said.

Initial testing showed that the level of virus in the worker’s system is low. The CDC will conduct a secondary test to confirm the results from a lab in Austin that showed Ebola infection, he said.

“Unfortunately it is possible in the coming days that we will see additional cases of Ebola,” he said.

Frieden said there was one person who may have had contact with the infected health worker when she could transmit the disease and that person is being monitored.

None of the 10 people who had close contact with Duncan or 38 people who had contact with that group have shown any symptoms, state health officials said. The infected worker was not among the 48 being monitored.

The Dallas hospital failed to recognize that Duncan had the symptoms of Ebola when he first went to the emergency room. He was sent home, allowing him to potentially expose others to the virus. Even though he was admitted two days later, his family has called for an examination of his care.