President Barack Obama meets Friday with Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office. Pham, a nurse diagnosed with Ebola after treating an infected man at a Dallas hospital, is free of the virus.

BETHESDA, Md. — A nurse who caught Ebola while caring for a Dallas patient who died of the disease walked out of a Washington-area hospital virus-free Friday and into open arms.

Nina Pham got a hug from President Barack Obama in the Oval Office at the White House. And outside the hospital where she had been since last week, she got hugs from the nation’s infectious disease chief, who oversaw her care.

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, Md., 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.

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.

Pham stood throughout the 20-minute press conference and was joined by her mother and sister. She read from a prepared statement and took no questions, but she called her experience “very stressful and challenging for me and for my family.”