Nina Pham meets with Obama after cured of Ebola

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (UPI) —

With an enormous hug in the Oval Office Friday, President Barack Obama delivered the message loud and clear: Don’t panic about Ebola.

Obama met with Dallas nurse Nina Pham at the White House, just hours after she was discharged from the National Institutes of Health Hospital in Bethesda, Md., declared cured of Ebola.

White House officials said no additional medical screening was required before the meeting.

Pham was one of two nurses to contract the disease while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas earlier this month. Duncan died on Oct. 8, and three days later Pham became the first person to contract the disease on American soil.

Speaking at the hospital, Pham thanked Dr. Kent Brantly, the American physician who survived Ebola after contracting it while treating patients in Liberia. Brantly donated his blood plasma for use in treating Pham and other Ebola patients.

A second nurse, Amber Vinson, tested positive for Ebola several days later. Doctors said Friday they can no longer detect the virus in Vinson’s body, and she is regaining her strength, although they have not yet determined when she will be discharged.

While several others have developed symptoms of Ebola in the U.S. after traveling from West Africa, Pham and Vinson remain the only two people to contract the virus in the country.