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We’re learning more about the first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, including an error in the man’s first visit to a hospital that may have put even more people at risk of contracting the deadly virus.

The patient has been identified as Thomas Duncan, a Liberian national who is 42-years-old. At this time he remains in isolation in a Dallas, Texas hospital. But it’s not his first time there.

Hospital officials confirm that just days ago, the patient was at the facility and told an intake nurse he had just travelled to North Texas from Liberia — but was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics. He is now being treated round the clock by doctors and nurses taking every precaution to contain the disease, while outside the hospital, a medical team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention works to stop the virus from spreading. They’re tracking down and monitoring people the patient had contact with when he began exhibiting symptoms. That includes his family, the paramedics who transported him to the hospital, and a group of school aged children. They have been identified and will be monitored for the next month or so.

Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC Director: “Ebola is a scary disease because of the severity of the illness that it causes and we’re really hoping for the recovery of this individual. At the same time, we are stopping it in its tracks in this country.”

Wednesday afternoon, Duncan’s condition was upgraded to serious but stable. As for the passengers that were on the same flight as him, doctors say they aren’t at risk because Ebola doesn’t spread before someone gets sick and Duncan didn’t show any signs of sickness until four days after he got off the plane. Ebola is not a very contagious disease either — it usually only spreads through blood and body fluid and only when a person is symptomatic.