WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama says the US must be guided by science — not fear — as it responds to Ebola.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says he was proud to give Texas nurse Nina Pham a hug in the Oval Office after she was cured of Ebola. He says the other nurse who contracted Ebola is also improving.

Obama is praising New York’s quick reaction to its first Ebola case. He says he’s promised local officials any federal help they need.

Obama is reminding Americans they can’t contract Ebola unless they come into direct contact with a patient’s bodily fluids.

The president says the US can beat the disease if it remains vigilant. He says the best way to stop it is at its source in West Africa.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest called the meeting with Obama “an opportunity for the president to thank her for her service.” But the close contact between the president and the former patient also came as officials in New York tried to calm fears after a doctor was diagnosed with Ebola in that city.

Pham said she felt “fortunate and blessed to be standing here today,” as she left the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where she had been since she arrived Oct. 16 from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

Pham thanked her health care teams in Dallas and at the NIH and singled out fellow Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, who recovered after becoming infected in Liberia, for donating plasma containing Ebola-fighting antibodies as part of her care.

“Although I no longer have Ebola, I know it may be a while before I have my strength back,” Pham said at a news conference.

Pham arrived at a Fort Worth, Texas airport just before midnight CDT Friday.

CareFlite pilot Jason Davis said he flew Pham back to Texas and said, “she’s great.” Davis described Pham as being in “great spirits.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters that five consecutive tests showed no virus left in her blood. Five tests is way beyond the norm, he stressed, but his team did extra testing because the NIH is a research hospital. He had walked out to the news conference with his arm around Pham and later gave her a big hug.

“She is cured of Ebola, let’s get that clear,” Fauci said.

Toll passes 10,000

More than 10,000 people have been infected with Ebola, according to figures released Saturday by the World Health Organization, as the outbreak continues to spread.

Of those cases, 4,922 people have died.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the largest ever outbreak of the disease with a rapidly rising death toll in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. There have also been cases in three other West African countries, Spain and the United States.

The UN health agency said Saturday that the number of confirmed, probable and suspected cases has risen to 10,141. Its figures show about 200 new cases since the last report, four days ago.

Even those grisly tolls are likely an underestimate, WHO has warned, as many people in the hardest hit countries have been unable or too frightened to seek medical care. A shortage of labs capable of handling potentially infected blood samples has also made it difficult to track the outbreak. For example, the latest numbers show no change in Liberia’s case toll, suggesting the numbers may be lagging behind reality.

On Thursday, authorities confirmed that the disease had spread to Mali, the sixth West African country affected, and on the same day a new case was confirmed in New York, in a doctor recently returned from Guinea.

Mali had long been considered highly vulnerable to the disease, since it shares a border with Guinea. The disease arrived there in a 2-year-old, who traveled from Guinea with her grandmother by bus and died Friday.

The toddler, who was bleeding from her nose during the journey, may have had high-risk contact with many people, the World Health Organization warned. So far, 43 people are being monitored in isolation for signs of the disease, and WHO said Saturday that authorities are continuing to look for more people at risk.

To help fight Ebola, the UN humanitarian flight service airlifted about 1 ton of medical supplies to Mali late Friday.

The seats of the plane were removed to make room for the cargo, which included hazard suits for health workers, surgical gloves, face shields and buckets, according to the World Food Program, which runs the flights.

“Speed is of the essence in this Ebola crisis. Agencies such as WFP and WHO are working every hour to confront together the virus as a matter of priority,” said Denize Brown, the West Africa regional director for the UN food agency.

Meanwhile, colleagues of an American doctor who caught Ebola while treating patients in West Africa say he was a hard worker who conscientiously followed safety procedures.

Craig Spencer is being treated for Ebola in New York City after coming down with a fever on Thursday, about a week after he returned from Guinea, where he had worked for Doctors Without Borders.

Two health workers at the aid group’s treatment center in Gueckedou, in southeastern Guinea, said Saturday that they are frightened by the news that Spencer, with whom they worked there, had Ebola. They said staff at the clinic was redoubling efforts to protect themselves.

The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the press.

Mali seeks to contain fears

Mali authorities on Saturday scrambled to calm fears over Ebola after the disease claimed its first victim in the African country, a contagious toddler who took a 1,000-km journey on public buses before seeking treatment.

The World Health Organization warned the situation in Mali was an “emergency,” and said in its latest Ebola situation report that the biggest outbreak on record has now killed 4,922 people, the vast majority of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with 10,141 cases reported.

The US states of New York and New Jersey ordered mandatory quarantine for medics who had treated victims of the disease in West Africa, after a doctor who had returned from the region became the first Ebola case in New York City.

President Barack Obama sought to calm a jittery public by hugging one of the two nurses who became the first to contract Ebola on American soil after treating a patient, but has now been declared free of the disease.

Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita aimed to ease fears after the death of a two-year-old girl, the first Ebola case in the landlocked country, who traveled from neighboring Guinea.