Disaster Risk Reduction

WASHINGTON POST                           Oct. 15, 2014

By Abby Phillip and Fred Barbash

A second Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital worker who tested positive for Ebola flew on a commercial flightfrom Cleveland to Dallas on Monday, the day before she reported symptoms of the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The health worker, who has not been named, cared for an Ebola-stricken Liberian man at the hospital, then tested positive for the disease in a preliminary test, Texas health officials announced Wednesday morning.

She flew on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 at around 6 p.m. on Oct. 13. There were 132 passengers on board, according to the airline and health officials. The CDC said it is working to reach out those passengers and is also asking them to call a hotline.

The agency and the airline also said that the health-care worker did not exhibit any symptoms while on the flight. A person infected with Ebola is only contagious once the person becomes symptomatic.

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WASHINGTON POST

By Todd C. Frankel                         October 14

....The Dallas nurse, 26-year old Nina Pham,who helped treat Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who was the first person diagnosed with the dreaded disease in the United States became the first – and so far only – person infected by Duncan. In the wake of her infection, U.S. health officials have pledged to review how future Ebola cases are handled.

But the case is also noteworthy for another, potentially positive reason: Nearly 50 people were exposed to Ebola before the nurse, and none of them has been diagnosed with the disease.

This group of neighbors, family members and first responders are being watched carefully by health authorities. They had some degree of close contact with Duncan during the four-day period when he was contagious – from when he started showing Ebola symptoms on Sept. 24 to when the hospital finally admitted him on Sept. 28. They didn’t take any Ebola-specific precautions. They didn’t know he was infected.... Yet, so far, they have not gotten sick. And their 21-day Ebola incubation period started before Pham’s.

CDC: U.S. has to rethink the way it addresses Ebola infection control

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                            Oct. 13, 2014

By Connie Cass

DALLAS --Every hospital must know how to diagnose Ebola in people who have been in West Africa and be ready to isolate a suspected case, Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday.

He said the CDC is working to improve protections for hospital workers after a nurse caring for an Ebola patient in Dallas became the first person to become infected with the disease inside the U.S.

‘‘We have to rethink the way we address Ebola infection control,’’ Frieden said, ‘‘because even a single infection is unacceptable.’’

The CDC is scrambling to interview all staff of the Dallas hospital who could have been exposed to the patient, a Liberian man who became sick after traveling to the United States and died at the hospital. Anyone at risk will be monitored, he said.

‘‘We need to consider the possibility that there could be additional cases, particularly among the health care workers who cared for the index patient’’ — the Liberian man — ‘‘when he was so ill,’’ Frieden said.

WASHINGTON POST

President Obama received two briefings on the diagnosis of a second Ebola case in Dallas, according to White House officials, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) urged the president to appoint a "czar" to coordinate the administration's response to the disease.

Obama was briefed Sunday morning by Lisa Monaco, who serves as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism and is overseeing the interagency response to the disease. Later, according to White House officials, Obama also discussed the situation with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell.