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President Obama meets — and hugs — cured US Ebola patient

by German Lopez
President Obama hugs Nina Pham.
President Obama hugs Nina Pham.
President Obama hugs Nina Pham.
Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama on Friday met — and hugged — Nina Pham, the Texas nurse who was cured of Ebola after becoming the first person to contract the disease in the US while treating Liberian patient Thomas Duncan.

Ebola patients are only contagious through their bodily fluids as long as they show symptoms. (Semen does seem to be one exception, as some research has shown it to be contagious for three months after someone is cured.) So Pham poses no threat of Ebola to anyone else, including Obama.

Ebola stages

To learn more about Ebola, read Vox’s card stack and 21 maps and charts that explain Ebola, and watch the two-minute video below:

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