1st Dallas Nurse With Ebola Headed to NIH Facility in Maryland

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Oct. 16, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- The first Dallas nurse to contract Ebola after treating a patient infected with the often lethal disease is to be moved to a specialized National Institutes of Health medical center in Maryland, officials reported Thursday.

Nina Pham, 26, had been undergoing treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where she was part of a team of caregivers that treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. Duncan became infected in his native Liberia before arriving in Dallas last month. He died on Oct. 8.

The NIH facility has one of four so-called biocontainment units in the United States that are designed to treat highly infectious diseases like Ebola. Pham was said to be in good condition.

The second Dallas nurse who tested positive for Ebola after treating Duncan -- 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson -- was transferred Wednesday night to another of the four biocontainment facilities: at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Emory successfully treated two other patients with the often fatal disease.

Also Thursday, Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut said it had admitted a patient late Wednesday night for evaluation of Ebola-like symptoms. The hospital said it had not yet "confirmed or ruled-out any diagnosis at this point," adding, "we are working in cooperation with City, State and Federal health officials."

The patient, a Yale University researcher, had recently returned from Liberia, one of three West African countries devastated by the Ebola epidemic, according to news reports.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas has come under sharp criticism for the way it treated Duncan. And nurses there said this week that they had been given inadequate training and equipment to handle a patient infected with a disease as deadly as Ebola.

Dr. Daniel Varga is chief clinical officer and senior executive vice president for Texas Health Resources, which operates Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. In prepared testimony to be delivered Thursday before a Congressional hearing into the response to Ebola in the United States, he said: "Unfortunately, in our initial treatment of Mr. Duncan, despite our best intentions and a highly skilled medical team, we made mistakes. We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry."

To allay fears of hospital workers across the United States, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday that he was establishing a CDC Ebola response team that will be sent to "any hospital anywhere in this country with a confirmed case of Ebola."

"We will put a team on the ground within hours, with some of the world's leading experts" in infection control, laboratory science, protective equipment and management of Ebola units, Frieden said.

Meanwhile, U.S. customs and public health officials on Thursday began stepped-up entry screening at four more airports for travelers arriving from West Africa. The airports are Washington Dulles International, O'Hare International in Chicago, Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey.

The screenings began Saturday at Kennedy International Airport in New York City, and have gone smoothly, Frieden said Wednesday.

The five airports handle 94 percent of the roughly 150 travelers who arrive daily in the United States from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Frieden said. Kennedy Airport receives nearly half of those travelers. Those three countries have borne the brunt of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Vinson, the second Dallas nurse, flew on a domestic, commercial airline flight on Monday evening -- less than 24 hours before she reported Ebola symptoms to hospital staff in Dallas, federal health officials said Wednesday.

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