‘It May Get Worse Before It Gets Better’: Second Ebola Case in Texas

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Second Health Care Worker Tests Positive for Ebola in Texas

Ebola5
In this Oct. 8, 2014 file photo, a sign points to the entrance to the emergency room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where U.S. Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was being treated, in Dallas.
Image: AP Photo/LM Otero, File/Associated Press

A second health care worker at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas has tested positive for Ebola, the Department of State Health Services in Texas has revealed.

The unnamed health care worker reported a fever Tuesday, and was immediately isolated at the hospital. The worker provided care for the first Ebola patient in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, who was treated at the hospital.

This is the third Ebola case in Texas. A 26-year-old nurse, yesterday identified as Nina Pham, was also infected with Ebola while treating Duncan.

Patient Update

Nina Pham is in good condition.

— TexasHealthResources (@texashealth) October 14, 2014

Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., died on Oct. 8 in Dallas. Duncan, who grew up in Liberia, came to Dallas in late September to visit family. He was diagnosed with Ebola a week after arriving to the U.S., on Sept. 30.

All in all, 76 staff members at Presbyterian had contact with Duncan, and all of them are being monitored daily for Ebola symptoms. Dallas News reports. Another four dozen people had contact with him before he was hospitalized, but all of them passed the critical two-week mark in their monitoring, and Frieden said it is increasingly unlikely that they have contracted Ebola.

Ebola is a deadly disease that spreads through contact with a symptomatic person’s bodily fluids, including blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen. More than 4,000 people have died in the ongoing epidemic of the disease, centered in West Africa.

It is not known exactly how the health workers who treated Duncan contracted Ebola. Dr. Tom Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mentioned a “breach of protocol” that happened at some point, but Pham was not able to identify the moment when she may have contracted the disease.

Frieden also warned that we might see additional cases of Ebola in the coming days. “This is because the healthcare workers who cared for this individual may have had a breach of the same nature [of the nurse],” he said.

On Tuesday, Frieden warned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should have sent “a more robust hospital infection control team” after the first case of Ebola was discovered in Dallas. He promised the agency will establish a CDC Ebola response team, which might prevent the spreading of the disease.

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