A day after Kansas University Hospital confirmed that it was testing a patient for Ebola, local health officials say Lawrence is adequately prepared to handle the virus.

Several agencies met Monday to coordinate what the local response would be to an Ebola case. They included the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical, Douglas County Emergency Management, KU Watkins Memorial Health Center and Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.

“I feel like our community is very well-prepared,” said Kim Ens, director of clinic services for the local health department, which since the summer has been sending information to local health care providers on how to handle an Ebola case. “I’m very confident that if we do have any cases, we will definitely stop the spread of it.”

An Ebola outbreak in West Africa over the past several months has taken the lives of more than 4,000 people out of the roughly 9,000 who have been infected, the World Health Organization has reported. So far, one person has died from Ebola in the U.S., a Liberian man who traveled to Texas last month. A nurse who was caring for that man recently became the first person to contract Ebola on American soil. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Tuesday released a statement saying the nurse is doing well and expressing optimism about her recovery.

KU Hospital confirmed Monday that it was testing a patient who had recently been in West Africa and had a “low to moderate risk” of having Ebola. The hospital said it hoped to reveal the man’s preliminary test results later this afternoon. Patients with Ebola-like symptoms are kept in strict isolation to avoid spreading the disease.

Health experts say one reason the disease has spread so rapidly in West Africa is because of the lack of medical infrastructure there; KU Hospital’s chief medical officer, Lee Norman, noted in a recent interview with the Journal-World that hospitals in the affected countries often don’t even have masks or gowns for health care workers.

Unlike respiratory illnesses like influenza which are airborne, Ebola is spread through the exchange of bodily fluids. Symptoms include sore throat, fever, muscle aches, headaches and fatigue that worsen as the disease progresses. The disease has a high mortality rate.

LMH made changes to its emergency screening process in the wake of the Ebola scare and now asks patients if they have traveled from Africa recently. The KU Watkins Memorial Health Center in Lawrence has been monitoring university students who have recently spent time in West Africa.

“I think our health care system in Douglas County, as well as in the United States, is prepared for this. Our hospitals work with infectious diseases all the time,” Ens said. “Truly, we don’t feel there’s going to be any kind of outbreak of Ebola. We may have sporadic cases, where someone comes into the country and starts having symptoms, but I feel like our public health system is prepared to stop it from spreading.”

The Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department encourages residents with questions about Ebola to email them to ebola@ldchealth.org.