Ebola Outbreak News Update 2014: Virus Found in Second Dallas Nurse, Disease Transmission Blamed on Sloppy Hospital Conditions
Texas Department of State Health Services announced Wednesday a second person, a healthcare worker, has tested positive for the Ebola virus, and is isolated at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
The healthcare worker, identifed as Amber Vinson, took a flight from Cleveland to Dallas just one day before she reporterd symptoms of the virus, Reuters reported. The CDC is reaching out to all 132 passengers on the flight.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said at an early morning news conference that the infected healthcare worker lived alone and had no pets, and health officials had cleaned affected areas involving the second nurse and alerted her neighbors and friends, according to Reuters.
Hospital administrators said they are doing everything to contain the virus.
"I don't think we have a systematic institutional problem," said Dr. Daniel Varga of Texas Health Resources, which owns the hospital.
The healthcare worker also took care of Thomas Eric Duncan -- the first person diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola. Duncan, who had traveled from Liberia where he contracted the disease, died Oct. 8.
The first diagnosed person, a nurse, Nina Pham, is in stable condition in the hospital and said in a statement she was "doing well."
The director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. Tom Frieden said he wished the agency had deployed a team of infectious-disease specialists to Dallas the day Duncan was diagnosed He said the agency will send a team to any U.S. hospital that diagnoses another Ebola patient.
More details are emerging about the care of Duncan at the Dallas hospital. He was left in an open area of the emergency room for hours, and nurses treating him worked without protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols, accorded to a statement released by the nation's largest nurses' union. Among those nurses was Nina Pham.
National Nurses United organized a conference call with reporters where Deborah Burger said she was concerned nurses at the hospital had to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments, and worried that their necks and heads were exposed when they cared for Duncan.
The nurses allege that Duncan's lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospital's pneumatic tubes, possibly risking contaminating of the specimen delivery system. They also said that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling.
The Presbyterian nurses are not represented by Nurses United or any other union. DeMoro and Burger said the nurses claimed they had been warned by the hospital not to speak to reporters or they would be fired, according to the Associated Press.
AP said Duncan first sought care at the hospital's ER late on Sept. 25 and was sent home the next morning. He was rushed by ambulance back to the hospital on Sept. 28.
The CDC said 76 staff members at the hospital could have been exposed to Duncan after his second ER visit. Another 48 people who may have had contact with him before he was isolated are being monitored.
The World Health Organization said the disease has killed over 4,000 people, most of them located in three West African countries -- Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The death rate has rise to 70 percent from a previous 50 percent. There are a reported 8,400 cases of the disease.
President Barack Obama was originally scheduled to attend fundraisers in New Jersey and Connecticut but announced on Wednesday he was canceling his trip to meet with his cabinet to talk about the Ebola outbreak.
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