The US government is ramping up its response to the Ebola crisis after a second Dallas nurse became ill and it was disclosed that she had been cleared to fly a day before her diagnosis.
While Ebola patients are not considered contagious until they have symptoms, and only two people are known to have contracted the disease in the US, Wednesday’s revelations raised fresh fears about whether hospitals and the public health system are equipped to handle the deadly disease.
Federal health officials are now being called to testify before a congressional committee to explain where things went wrong.
President Barack Obama has directed his administration to respond in a “much more aggressive way” to oversee the Dallas cases and ensure that the lessons learned there are transmitted to hospitals and clinics across the country.
For the second day in a row, he has cancelled out-of-town trips to stay in Washington and monitor the Ebola response.
Even as the president sought to calm new fears about Ebola in the US, he cautioned against letting them overshadow the far more urgent crisis unfolding in West Africa where Ebola has killed more than 4,000.
Underscoring his emphasis on international action, Mr Obama also urged European leaders to discuss better coordination in the fight against Ebola in the countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea and to issue a call for more money and personnel to “to bend the curve of the epidemic”.
British prime minister David Cameron’s office said that during the call Mr Cameron offered to consult with Italy to add treatment beds in Sierra Leone.
Chinese president Xi Jinping has pledged continued support for the fight against Ebola in West Africa, but made no specific new aid offers.
France has pledged to begin screening passengers who arrive at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport on the once-daily flight from Guinea’s capital.
Wednesday’s development in Dallas captured political and public attention in the United States.
Dr Tom Frieden, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said nurse Amber Joy Vinson never should have been allowed to fly on a commercial jetliner because she had been exposed to the virus while caring for an Ebola patient who travelled to the US from Liberia.
Ms Vinson was being monitored more closely since another nurse, Nina Pham, also involved in Thomas Eric Duncan’s care, was diagnosed with Ebola.
It has emerged that a CDC official cleared Ms Vinson to board the Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to the Dallas area by a CDC official. Her reported temperature — 99.5 degrees — was below the threshold set by the agency and she had no symptoms, according to agency spokesman David Daigle.
Ms Vinson was diagnosed with Ebola a day after the flight, news that sent airline stocks falling amid fears that it could dissuade people from flying. Losses of between 5 per cent and 8 per cent were recorded before shares recovered in afternoon trading.
The new development in Dallas captured political and public attention in the United States, heightening fears that the public health system and the protocols used to protect health care workers were not ironclad.
Mr Duncan, who travelled to the US from Liberia, originally was sent home when he went to the Dallas hospital’s emergency room only to return much sicker two days later. He died of Ebola on October 8th.
Dr Frieden has said breaches of protocols led to the infection of the two nurses. More than 70 other health care workers involved in Duncan’s care were being monitored.
Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, have increased calls for travel bans or visa suspensions from the west African countries where the disease has spread and urged the administration to take other measures to secure the transportation system.
The oversight subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a hearing on Ebola for today, with Dr Frieden and Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
In prepared testimony, Mr Fauci said Duncan’s death and the infections outside of Africa of the two Dallas nurses and a nurse in Spain “intensify our concerns about this global health threat.”
He said two Ebola vaccines candidates were undergoing a first phase of human clinical testing this autumn, but he cautioned that that scientists are still in the early stages of understanding how an Ebola infection can be treated and prevented.
Medical records provided by Mr Duncan’s family showed Ms Vinson inserted catheters, drew blood and dealt with his body fluids. Late on Wednesday, she arrived in Atlanta to be treated at Emory University Hospital, which has already treated three Americans diagnosed with the virus.
Even though Ms Vinson did not report having a fever until the day after she returned home, Dr Frieden, the CDC director, said she should not have boarded a commercial flight.
From now on, Dr Frieden said, no-one else involved in Duncan’s care will be allowed to travel “other than in a controlled environment”. He cited guidelines that permit charter flights or travel by car but no public transportation.
On its website, the CDC says all people possibly exposed to Ebola should restrict their travels — including by avoiding commercial flights — for 21 days.
Mr Obama sought to ease fears in the US, urging a stepped-up response even as he stressed that the danger in the United States remained remote.
He said: “We want a rapid response team, a SWAT team essentially, from the CDC to be on the ground as quickly as possible, hopefully within 24 hours, so that they are taking the local hospital step by step though what needs to be done.”
But the president also noted that the Ebola is not an airborne virus like the flu, and is therefore more difficult to transmit.
PA