US Ebola victim's girlfriend says she's 'depending on God' to save them

Ebola VirusWikipedia

The girlfriend of the first person to be diagnosed with the Ebola virus on US soil has admitted she fears for their lives.

Louise Troh, a 36-year-old care worker, told CNN's Anderson Cooper she was "hanging in and depending on God to save our lives".

She had until Friday been in quarantine in the apartment of Thomas Eric Duncan along with her 13-year-old son and two nephews aged 23 and 28.

They were finally able to move to a private home offered by a volunteer, the BBC reports, while hazardous materials specialists moved in to clean Duncan's apartment. 

Duncan, a Liberian national, was diagnosed with Ebola after returning to the US on September 20 from a visit to family in Liberia.

Miss Troh said the towels and bedsheets used by Mr Duncan had not been removed from the apartment, and that she had been sleeping in the living room.

"We can't wait for everything to be over, we can't wait," she said.

Mr Duncan developed symptoms four days after returning to Dallas and sought medical assistance at Texas Presbyterian Hospital on September 26, but his family say he was sent home the first time, Associated Press reports.

"They took him back to the same hospital the doctor now says that he has Ebola so our question is how does that happen, what did he contract it from? He was tested in Africa as negative and after the hospital after he got medication, he was OK," his half-brother Wilfred Smallwood.

"How come he got Ebola after they gave him medication? That's our major concern right now."

Mr Duncan's mother Nowah spoke of her hopes for her son's recovery in a video message to him broadcast via NBC News.

""I know God will make a way for me to see you, and you to see me," she said.

"I hope the people will help you with medicine and God will bless you, and God will bless the medicine for you."

AP reports that Liberian authorities are making moves to prosecute Mr Duncan because he supposedly lied on an airport questionnaire which asks travellers departing from the country whether they came into contact with an infected person.

The news agency reports the suspicions of neighbours in the Liberian capital Monrovia that Mr Duncan contracted Ebola after helping a sick neighbour find treatment.

The authorities in Texas are working to check up to 100 people believed to have come into contact with Mr Duncan or someone close to him since his return to Dallas.