The Ebola patient fighting for his life in a Dallas hospital is on a ventilator and a kidney dialysis machine to help stabilize his health, the hospital said on Tuesday.

Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the deadly virus on U.S. soil, has also been given the experimental medication brincidofovir. A hospital in Nebraska said it is using the same drug to treat an American journalist who was airlifted from Liberia and arrived Monday, Reuters reported.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said in a statement that Duncan's liver function declined over the weekend. It said although it has since improved, "doctors caution that this could vary in coming days."

Duncan is being sedated. His temperature is normal and his diarrhea has slowed, according to family members who spoke with his doctors at the hospital on Tuesday.

Authorities in the United States and the public are on alert following Duncan's diagnosis more than a week ago, which raised concerns that the worst epidemic of Ebola on record could spread from three hardest-hit impoverished countries - Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Duncan, who arrived in Texas in late September on a commercial flight from Liberia, has been in critical condition since Saturday.