Texas Health Care Worker With Ebola Took Commercial Flight on Monday: CDC

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 15, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- The second health care worker at a Dallas hospital to be diagnosed with Ebola flew on a domestic, commercial airline flight on Monday evening -- less than 24 hours before she reported symptoms to hospital staff, federal health officials said Wednesday.

In a statement released Wednesday morning, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the female worker -- currently being treated in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital -- flew on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth, which landed in Dallas at 8:16 p.m. CT.

"Because of the proximity in time between the evening flight and first report of illness the following morning, CDC is reaching out to passengers" on the flight, the statement said. Frontier is working with the CDC to identify and notify passengers, and anyone who was on the flight is being asked to call 1 800-CDC INFO (1-800-232-4636).

Experts stress that Ebola can only be transmitted by a person who is exhibiting symptoms.

"The health care worker exhibited no signs or symptoms of illness while on flight 1143, according to the crew," the CDC said. The plane was cleaned after landing in a manner "consistent with CDC guidelines prior to returning to service the next day," Frontier added in a statement. The aircraft has since been removed from service.

After reporting a fever Tuesday morning, the second Ebola-infected health care worker -- an unidentified woman -- was isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian. Health officials interviewed the woman to identify any people who may have had contact with her, and those contacts will be monitored, according to a statement from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The preliminary Ebola diagnosis was made after a test late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin. A second test that's expected to confirm the diagnosis on Wednesday will come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The announcement of the second infected health care worker in Dallas came a day after the director of the CDC acknowledged that more health workers at the hospital could be infected. "It's possible we will see other people become ill," Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said at a Tuesday news briefing.

Both infected workers were part of a team of dozens of health care professionals and support staffers who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan, a native of Liberia who was the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. Liberia is one of three West African nations -- the others are Guinea and Sierra Leone -- that have been ravaged since the spring by the worst outbreak of Ebola in history.

Meanwhile, the first health care worker in Dallas to be diagnosed with Ebola, 26-year-old nurse Nina Pham, is in stable condition, and said in a statement Tuesday that she is doing well.

"I'm doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," Pham said.

On Tuesday, public health officials said they were actively monitoring 76 workers at Texas Health Presbyterian who may have been exposed to Ebola while treating Duncan. They may have been exposed to the Ebola virus through contact with either Duncan or his bodily fluids, Frieden said.

To prevent future exposures of health care workers, Frieden pledged to send a team of top CDC infection-control experts to any U.S. hospital that must treat an Ebola patient.

"I've thought often about it. I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the first patient was diagnosed," Frieden said. "That might have prevented this infection."

Medical experts still haven't determined how Pham became exposed to Ebola, Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said during the Tuesday news conference.

Doctors diagnosed Duncan with Ebola on Sept. 28 at Texas Health Presbyterian. He died 10 days later, on Oct. 8.

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