A health worker, right, sprays a man with disinfectant chemicals as he is suspected of dying due to the Ebola virus while onlookers stand behind in Monrovia, Liberia
The U.S. health worker who contracted Ebola after being in contact with an infected patient in Dallas is leading officials to examine how widespread the danger is for those who cared for him.
The unidentified employee at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital wasn’t among the 48 people who were being watched because they may have been in contact with the patient before he was placed in isolation, said Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Under the safety procedures in place, the caregivers were monitoring their own health.
“At some point there was a breach in protocol,” Frieden said at a press conference in Atlanta Sunday. “It is possible that other individuals were exposed.”
It’s the first time someone is known to have contracted Ebola inside U.S. borders, and only the second known case of an infection outside Africa. The diagnosis adds pressure on the U.S. government to tighten controls aimed at stemming the spread of the virus that’s killed more than 4,000 people this year in three African nations.
The health worker had been in contact with the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, on multiple occasions, Frieden said.
The medical team members who helped care for Duncan once he was isolated at the hospital were responsible for monitoring their own conditions because they were considered to be at low risk, Frieden said. The infected worker noticed she had a fever, notified the hospital and was admitted on Oct. 10, Texas Health Presbyterian said in a statement. Her Ebola was confirmed by the Atlanta-based CDC Sunday.
The CDC will investigate how the lapse occurred while increasing training and safety procedures, Frieden said.
The infected worker, who has asked to remain anonymous, was involved in Duncan’s second visit to the hospital, said Dan Varga, chief clinical officer at Texas Health Presbyterian. The worker was wearing full protective gear, Varga said.
Protective gear doesn’t guarantee that an infection won’t occur, said Ashish Jha, professor of health policy at Harvard’s Public School of Health in Boston, in a telephone interview.
“The hard part is during the disrobing, when you take the suit off,” he said. “You’re removing material, getting skin exposed.”
New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport began added screening for arriving passengers over the weekend to help stem the spread of Ebola. Workers are using special procedures for people listed on airlines’ manifests as having traveled from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, the countries at the center of the outbreak in West Africa.
In Madrid, Teresa Romero, a nursing assistant, is hospitalized after becoming infected last month when helping care for two missionaries who had fallen ill in West Africa. Her situation remains stable, Fernando Simon, a health ministry official, said yesterday.
One of 16 people being monitored for Ebola in Madrid was released, and none of the others are showing symptoms of the virus, officials said.
An international effort is under way to control the worst outbreak of Ebola on record, which has infected more than 8,300 people and killed more than 4,000. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have accounted for most of those cases.
ebola strike threat in liberia hospitals
Some nurses in Liberia defied calls for a strike yesterday and turned up for work at hospitals amid the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
In view of the danger of their work, members of the National Health Workers Association are demanding higher monthly hazard pay. The association has more than 10,000 members, though the health ministry says only about 1,000 of those are employed at sites receiving Ebola patients.
Some nurses were turning up for work yesterday, according to Gobee Logan, a doctor at a government hospital in Tubmanburg, 60 kilometers from the capital of Monrovia.
The call to strike was for nurses, physician assistants, lab technicians and other health workers, but not doctors.
Darrell Preston, Margaret Newkirk and Caroline Chen, Bloomberg
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