WASHINGTON, October 15 (RIA Novosti) - A Dallas nurse diagnosed with Ebola on Tuesday is in stable condition and expected to be transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta later today, the Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
"She is ill but clinically stable," Tom Frieden said during a briefing on Wednesday.
Nina Pham, the first person to contract Ebola within the United States, is a nurse who caught the illness while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national admitted into Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Duncan who became the first person diagnosed with the disease on US soil received treatment for 11 days before dying on October 12.
Second health care worker with Ebola did not show symptoms while traveling by the plane, and the likelihood that people were exposed is low, according to CDC director.
"But we'll still reach out to passengers who were on that airline," Frieden said.
Some 70 nurses assigned to care for Duncan at the Dallas hospital claim they were given the option of wearing special N95 masks, but some supervisors told them the masks were unnecessary. The nurses also stated that Duncan was left for several hours in a non-isolated area upon his arrival and revealed that his lab work was sent through the hospital's tube system, possibly contaminating the entire system.
The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of the infected. There is no officially approved medication for the disease, but several countries are currently working on developing Ebola vaccine. The death toll is estimated to be over 4,400 according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) reports.
