The Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) admitted missteps in handling the country's first Ebola case. CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said that he wished the federal agency had sent a team of infectious-disease specialists to Dallas immediately after Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with the deadly disease.

Dr. Frieden added that a health worker might not have been infected with Ebola virus if a special response team had been deployed immediately.

Nina Pham, a nurse contracted Ebola virus while caring for Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Pham, the first person to contract the virus in the U. S., was among more than 70 health workers who cared for Duncan.

Pham, who graduated from nursing school around four years ago, was certified in critical care procedures a couple of months before Ebola arrived in the country.

Duncan, a 46-year-old Liberian, had contracted the disease from a woman whom he had cared for in West Africa. He died on Wednesday last week.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that West Africa could face as many as 10,000 new Ebola cases per week within next two months. The disease has already claimed nearly 4,500 lives, most of them in West Africa.