America's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that a man who flew into Texas from west Africa has tested positive for Ebola.

It is the first case to be diagnosed in the United States.

The patient is a man who became infected in Liberia and travelled to Texas, where he was hospitalised with symptoms confirmed to be caused by the deadly virus, a CDC spokesman has told the AFP news agency.

He is not a healthcare worker, the spokesman added.

CDC Director Doctor Thomas Frieden told a press conference US hospitals are well prepared to handle patients with Ebola, and assured the public the virus should not pose the same threat in the US as it does in Africa.

The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas said earlier on Tuesday that it had placed a person in strict isolation based on their "symptoms and recent travel history".

Twelve other people in the US have been tested for the Ebola virus since July, with all of those tests coming back negative. A handful of US medical workers who were infected in West Africa have been flown back to the US for treatment and have recovered.

The virus causes a range of symptoms including fever, muscle aches, vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding.

The outbreak has infected 6,574 people across five countries and killed 3,091, according to the World Health Organisation.

Meanwhile, Ireland's Minister of State with responsibility for Overseas Development Aid is this morning travelling to Sierra Leone.

Minister Sean Sherlock will be the first minister from any European country to travel to the centre of the outbreak, accompanied by the Irish ambassador in the country and a team from Irish Aid.

He spoke to Newstalk Breakfast about the 48-hour trip, which he hopes will raise awareness of the problem in Europe:

Earlier this month, it was announced that Ireland is giving €600,000 in funding to support communities battling the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Originally posted at 7:16am