A female hospital worker in Texas who treated the first man to die of Ebola in the United States has been diagnosed with the deadly disease, marking the first transmission of the virus in the country.
The worker, who has not been identified, tested positive for the disease in a preliminary test, Texas health officials said.
The employee of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas had helped treat Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of the disease at the hospital last week, after travelling from west Africa where more than 4,000 people have died from the disease.
In Spain a nurse infected with Ebola, the first known person to contract the disease outside west Africa, is in a stable condition and is showing signs of improvement, the Madrid government has said.
Another 15 people, including the husband of nurse Teresa Romero Ramos and several healthcare workers who treated her before she tested positive for Ebola last week, remain in quarantine. The nurse caught the disease while treating two Spanish missionary priests who had contracted the virus in west Africa.
Diagnosis
A top US government health official said the latest Ebola diagnosis in a Texas health worker shows there was a clear breach of safety protocol during Mr Duncan’s treatment and warned that further diagnoses of Ebola cases may emerge over the coming days.
Dr Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the CBS talk show Face The Nation yesterday that all those who treated the west African man were considered to be potentially exposed but he couldn't say how many were affected.
President Barack Obama ordered additional officials from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to Dallas to investigate the breach of control protocols at the Dallas hospital and to make recommendations “as expeditiously as possible.”
According to the White House, he directed federal authorities to “take immediate additional steps to ensure hospitals and healthcare providers nationwide are prepared to follow protocols should they encounter an Ebola patient.”
Texas health officials said the nurse was in a stable condition after treating Mr Duncan during his second visit to the hospital on or after September 28th. He was diagnosed with Ebola two days later. He was initially sent home with a prescription for antibiotics after visiting the emergency ward despite showing symptoms of Ebola and telling a member of staff that he had travelled to the US from west Africa last month.
The nurse had worn protective clothing prescribed by the Centers for Disease Control such as gloves, mask and a shield, said Texas health resources chief clinical officer Dan Varga. Asked how concerned he was that the nurse tested positive for the virus after following safety precautions, he said: “We’re very concerned.”
On Saturday, New York’s JFK airport began screening travellers from west Africa for Ebola symptoms, with four other airports – Washington Dulles, Chicago O’Hare, Newark and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta – to begin similar screening by Thursday.
