`` It 's even worse than I 'd feared , '' Dr. Tom Frieden , director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , said Wednesday of the Ebola outbreak rampaging through West Africa . `` Every day this outbreak goes on , it increases the risk for another export to another country . `` The sooner the world comes together to help Liberia and West Africans , the safer we will all be . '' Frieden spoke to CNN 's Nima Elbagir in Monrovia , Liberia , where fear and anger over the largest Ebola outbreak on record has grown as health officials put up quarantines around some of the capital city 's poorest areas . More than 2,600 people have been infected by Ebola in Liberia , Guinea , Sierra Leone and Nigeria since the outbreak began in December , according to the World Health Organization . Nearly 1,500 have died . Health care workers at risk . A CDC staff member was recently flown home to the United States on a private charter after spending time in close proximity with another health care worker who tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone . The CDC worker is reportedly healthy and has shown no symptoms of the deadly virus . He or she is simply rotating back to the United States as previously scheduled , according to the CDC . It is CDC policy that people who have been exposed to Ebola and are traveling long distances do so on a private plane in the three weeks after exposure to lower the risk of spreading the infection . `` We think it 's the right thing to do , to bring them home , '' CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said . `` They want to come home . Their tour of duty was up , and we 've made it crystal clear that if they go over there and have something like this happen and want to go home , we 're going to bring them home . '' The staff member will be monitored for 21 days -- the longest known incubation period -- for Ebola symptoms , but he or she currently `` poses no Ebola-related risk to friends , family , co-workers , or the public , '' the CDC said in a statement . Inside the Ebola outbreak with the CDC . The other health care worker , who tested positive for Ebola , has been flown to Germany to recover , Skinner said . The World Health Organization said Monday that 120 health care workers have died in the Ebola outbreak , and twice that number have been infected . Public health experts say several factors are to blame , including a shortage of protective gear and improper use of the gear they do have . The fact that the disease has killed so many people working to care for infected patients is making it increasingly hard to combat the virus in West Africa , WHO said . `` It depletes one of the most vital assets during the control of any outbreak . WHO estimates that in the three hardest-hit countries , only one to two doctors are available to treat 100,000 people , and these doctors are heavily concentrated in urban areas . '' Another outbreak . On Tuesday , the Ministry of Health for the Democratic Republic of Congo notified WHO of another possible Ebola outbreak . Health officials say a woman in the Central African country became ill with symptoms of Ebola after butchering a bush animal that had been given to her by her husband . She died on August 11 . Since then health care workers , relatives and other individuals who came in contact with her body have developed symptoms and died . Between July 28 and August 18 , a total of 24 suspected cases of an unidentified hemorrhagic fever , including 13 deaths , have been identified , WHO said . Samples have been sent to laboratories to confirm that these illnesses are being caused by the Ebola virus and to identify the strain . As none of the people involved has been to the four countries affected by the other Ebola epidemic , health officials believe this to be a separate outbreak . The Democratic Republic of Congo has seen six smaller Ebola outbreaks since the 1970s , according to the CDC . Your questions about Ebola answered . What happens when you survive Ebola ?
More than 2,600 people have been infected by Ebola in West Africa . The Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 1,500 . TL;DR A Liberian man who recently returned from Guinea is the first person to contract Ebola, health officials said Thursday. CDC staffer is healthy and showing no signs of Ebola virus .