DALLAS (AP) — Fears of the Ebola virus deepened in the U.S. Wednesday with word that a second Texas nurse caught the disease from a patient and flew across the Midwest aboard an airliner the day before she was diagnosed. President Barack Obama canceled a campaign trip to address the outbreak.
Amber Joy Vinson, 29, was actively engaged in caring for Thomas Eric Duncan in the days before his death, according to medical records provided to The Associated Press by Duncan’s family. The records show she inserted catheters, drew blood, and dealt with Duncan’s body fluids. Kent State University in Ohio, where three of Vinson’s relatives work, confirmed she was the latest patient Wednesday.
The second case among health workers in the U.S. pointed to lapses beyond how one individual may have donned and removed protective garb.
Authorities declined to provide details on the type of care Vinson provided to Duncan, who was diagnosed with Ebola after coming to the U.S. from Liberia. He died Oct. 8.
Even though the nurse did not report having a fever until Tuesday, the day after she returned home, she should not have boarded a commercial airliner after learning that another nurse, Nina Pham, had been diagnosed with Ebola, government officials said Wednesday.
CDC Director Tom Frieden said no one else involved in Duncan’s care will be allowed to travel “other than in a controlled environment.”
Infected Ebola patients are not considered contagious until they have symptoms. Frieden said it was unlikely that other passengers or airline crew members were at risk because the nurse did not have any vomiting or bleeding.
Even so, the CDC is alerting the 132 passengers aboard the Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth on Monday “because of the proximity in time between the evening flight and first report of illness the following morning.” Officials are asking them to call the health agency so they can be monitored. The woman flew from Dallas to Cleveland on Oct. 10.
The nurse reported a fever Tuesday and was in isolation within 90 minutes, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.
“We are looking at every element of our personal protection equipment and infection control in the hospital,” said Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer for Texas Health Resources, which operates Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
In Washington, the White House said Obama’s trip to New Jersey and Connecticut would be postponed to a later date. The president was to meet with top officials who are coordinating the government’s response to Ebola.
His decision to nix the trip — just a few hours before Air Force One was scheduled to depart — reflected the urgency of the situation amid escalating concerns about the disease.
Vinson will be transferred to a special bio-containment unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where other Ebola patients have been successfully treated, Frieden said. Pham will be monitored in Dallas to determine the best place for her care, Frieden said.
The CDC has acknowledged that the government was not aggressive enough in managing Ebolaand containing the virus as it spread from an infected patient to a nurse at a Dallas hospital.
“We could’ve sent a more robust hospital infection control team and been more hands-on with the hospital from day one about exactly how this should be managed,” he said Tuesday.
The second case may help health officials determine where the infection-control breach is occurring and make practices safer for health workers everywhere. For example, if both health workers were involved in drawing Duncan’s blood, placing an intravenous line or suctioning mucus when Duncan was on a breathing machine, that would be recognized as a particularly high-risk activity. It might also reveal which body fluids pose the greatest risk.
Frieden outlined new steps this week designed to stop the spread of the disease, including the creation of an Ebola response team, increased training for health care workers nationwide and changes at the Texas hospital to minimize the risk of more infections.
The new case lends support to nurses’ claims this week that they have inadequate training and in some cases, protective gear, to take care of Ebola patients.
“They’re not prepared” for what they are being asked to do, said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, a union with 185,000 members.
Based on statements from nurses it did not identify, the union described how Duncan was left in an open area of the emergency room for hours. It said staff treated Duncan for days without the correct protective gear, that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling and safety protocols constantly changed.
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Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione and AP reporters Martha Mendoza, Maud Beelman, Matt Sedensky and Alex Sanz in Dallas contributed to this report.
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