U.S. health officials say they are setting up an Ebola response team that would travel to anywhere in the country where Ebola is diagnosed “within hours.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden said at a news conference in Atlanta on Tuesday that he’s been hearing “loud and clear” from health-care workers in the U.S. that they are worried and don’t feel prepared to treat Ebola.
“I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day [the first] patient was diagnosed,” he said.
Frieden also said that the nurse who became infected with Ebola while treating the first patient diagnosed in the U.S. remains in stable condition.
Nurse Nina Pham, 26, said earlier in the day that she was “doing well.”Pham was among about 70 staff members at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, according to medical records.
She was in the Liberian man’s room often, from the day he was placed in intensive care until the day before he died last week.
“I’m doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers,” Pham said in a statement issued by the hospital, which said doctors were hopeful that she would recover.
She and other health care workers wore protective gear, including gowns, gloves, masks and face shields — and sometimes full-body suits — when caring for Duncan, but she became the first person to contract the disease within the United States. Duncan died Wednesday.
Pham understood the risks and tried to reassure her family that she would be safe, according to a family friend.
Nurse Nina Pham, 26, who became the first person to contract Ebola within the United States, says she is ‘doing well.’ (Courtesy of tcu360.com/ Associated Press)
When Pham’s mother learned her daughter was caring for Duncan, Pham told her: “Don’t worry about me,” Christina Tran told The Associated Press on Monday.
Pham went to the hospital Friday night after finding she had a fever.
Pham’s parents live in Fort Worth, where they are part of a closely-knit, deeply religious community of Vietnamese Catholics. Members of their church held a special mass for her Monday.
At the hospital, she received a plasma transfusion from a doctor who beat the virus.
Survivor donates blood to 3 Ebola victims
Jeremy Blume, a spokesman for the non-profit medical mission group Samaritan’s Purse, confirmed that the plasma donation came from Kent Brantly, the first American to return to the U.S. from Liberia to be treated for Ebola. Brantly received an experimental treatment and fought off the virus, and has donated blood to three others, including Pham.
Brantly said in a recent speech that he also offered his blood for Duncan, but that their blood types didn’t match.
Since Pham tested positive for Ebola, public-health authorities have intensified their monitoring of other hospital workers who cared for Duncan.
Frieden said he would not be surprised if more fall ill because Ebola patients become more contagious as the disease progresses.
Frieden has said a breach of protocol led to the nurse’s infection, but officials are not sure what went wrong. Pham has not been able to point to any specific breach.
Among the things the CDC will investigate is how the workers took off protective gear, because removing it incorrectly can lead to contamination. Investigators will also look at dialysis and intubation — the insertion of a breathing tube in a patient’s airway. Both procedures have the potential to spread the virus.
Source:: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ebola-outbreak-u-s-to-create-ebola-response-team-1.2798065?cmp=rss
