DALLAS – A second Texas health care worker who treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan has become infected with the deadly disease, health officials announced early Wednesday.
The hospital employee reported a fever on Tuesday and was immediately isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, officials said. The woman's name, age, and position have not released.
“This is a heroic person, a person who has dedicated her life to helping others and is a servant leader,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said during a press conference.
The woman was among 76 hospital workers who cared for Duncan, a Liberian citizen who died from Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian a week ago.
Jenkins called the second employee’s diagnosis a “gut shot” to the hospital staff. He acknowledged officials are making contingency plans that others who treated Duncan may develop Ebola as well.
“That is a very real possibility,” he said.
It wasn't immediately known how the second worker contracted the disease, but the hospital's chief clinical officer said but “it’s clear there was an exposure somewhere, sometime in their treatment of Mr. Duncan.”
“We’re a hospital that may have done some things different with the benefit of what we know today,” said a bleary eyed Dr. Daniel Varga said during a news conference. “Make no mistake, no one wants to get this right more than our hospital.” The second Ebola infection at the hospital is "an unprecedented crisis," he said.
The latest positive test for Ebola was determined at about midnight Tuesday at a state laboratory in Austin. Results from a second testing by the CDC in Atlanta are expected later Wednesday.
A hazardous-materials team is now decontaminating the worker’s Dallas apartment in a popular community not far from the hospital. City officials said she lived alone and had no pets.
The woman becomes the third person to be diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas since Sept. 30. City officials addressed the public early Wednesday.
“I continue to believe that while Dallas is anxious about this — and with this news this morning the anxiety level goes up a level — we are not fearful,” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said. “It may get worse before it gets better, but it will get better.”
Duncan, who had travelled from West Africa to Dallas days before becoming ill, was the first person to ever be diagnosed with the virus in the United States. The disease, for which there is no known cure, has killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa in 2014, the World Health Organization estimates.
Duncan, 42, was treated at Texas Health Presbyterian for 10 days before his death. Last Friday, 26-year-old nurse Nina Pham began running a fever while at home and went to the hospital where she was isolated. She tested positive for Ebola on Sunday. Hospital officials reported that she was in good condition as of late Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment