WASHINGTON, October 16 (RIA Novosti) - The Ebola-infected American nurse Nina Pham will be moved to the US National Institutes of Health Special Care Unit in Bethesda, Maryland on Thursday, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
"This evening, tonight, we will be admitting to the Special Clinical Studies Unit at the National Institutes of Health, Nina Pham, otherwise known as nurse number one. She will be coming to the National Institutes of Health where we will be supplying her with state of the art care in our high level containment facility," Fauci said at a Thursday Congressional hearing on the spread of the Ebola virus.
Pham is one of the two nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who contracted Ebola while taking care of Thomas Duncan. The patient recently deceased after contracting the virus while in Liberia before traveling back to the United States.
Pham was self-monitoring after caring for the patient. She immediately admitted herself to hospital when she discovered she was showing symptoms of high fever.
According to testimony given to Congress on Thursday by Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer and senior executive vice president for Texas Health Resources, Pham's conditions has recently been upgraded to good and she will continue care at NIH.
Dr. Varga noted that there are investigations taking place to determine when and how the nurses were infected, and whether there was a breach in protocol. He noted that everything is being done to find the answers.
The worst Ebola epidemic in history began in southern Guinea at the end of 2013 and soon spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
The death toll is estimated to be over 4,400. A vaccine against the disease will reportedly be available in the summer of 2015, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
