2 Dallas nurses with Ebola at separate bio-containment hospitals
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health officials said Thursday they still don't know how two Dallas nurses caught Ebola from a patient, as criticism increased from lawmakers who questioned whether the nation is prepared to stop the deadly virus from spreading in the U.S.
The revelation that one of the hospital nurses, Amber Joy Vinson, was cleared to fly on a commercial airline the day before she was diagnosed raised new alarms about the American response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The death toll is expected to climb above 4,500 in Africa, all but a few within Liberia, Sierra Leone and New Guinea, the World Health Organization said.
The first nurse stricken in the U.S., Nina Pham, who contracted Ebola after treating a Liberian man in Dallas, was being flown to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) outside Washington, while Vinson, 29, has already been transferred to a bio-hazard infectious disease center at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
The NIH aid in a statement that Pham, 26, would be taken from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas to the NIH center in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIH facility has one of four bio-containment units in the United States.
Texas Health Presbyterian officials said Wednesday that Pham was in good condition.
Hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said Thursday the move is necessary because numerous employees are being monitored for symptoms of the virus and aren't available to work.
"With so many of the medical professionals who normally staff our intensive care unit sidelined for the continuous monitoring, we felt it was in the best interest of the hospital's employees, the nurses, the physicians, the community, to give the hospital an opportunity to prepare for tomorrow ... for whatever comes next," Watson said.
Pham will receive care from an NIH staff that specializes in infectious disease and critical care, according to the NIH statement.
Both nurses wore protective gear including face shields, hazardous materials suits and protective footwear as they inserted catheters, drew blood and dealt with Duncan's body fluids. Still, the two somehow contracted Ebola. Federal health officials said Thursday they still don't know how the nurses caught the virus from Duncan.
In Washington, President Barack Obama directed his administration to respond in a "much more aggressive way" to the threat and, for the second day in a row, canceled his out-of-town trips to stay in Washington and monitor the Ebola response.
Leading up to what was expected to be a combative hearing on Capitol Hill, the chairman of a House committee said it appeared that U.S. hospitals were not ready and health care workers weren't properly trained or equipped.
Federal health officials made "false assumptions" about the level of readiness and that "can get you in a lot of trouble," Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., said on MSNBC.
In Europe, Spain's government is wrestling with similar questions. The condition of a nursing assistant infected with Ebola at a Madrid hospital appeared to be improving, but a person who came in contact with her before she was hospitalized developed a fever and was being tested Thursday.
That second person is not a health care worker, a Spanish Health Ministry spokesman said.
To this point, only hospital workers - the Madrid nursing assistant and the two nurses in Dallas - had been known to have contracted Ebola outside West Africa during the outbreak that began in March.
Amid increasing global concern, France said that on Saturday it will begin screening passengers who arrive at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport on the once-daily flight from Guinea's capital.
In the U.S., Customs and health officials at airports in Chicago, Atlanta, suburban Washington and Newark, New Jersey, were to begin taking the temperatures of passengers from the three hardest-hit West African countries Thursday. The screenings, using no-touch thermometers, started last Saturday at New York's Kennedy International Airport.
"Despite these latest incidents, we remain confident that our public health and health care systems can prevent an Ebola outbreak here," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in prepared testimony for the hearing on Capitol Hill.
With hospitals and airports on heightened alert, Frieden said the CDC is receiving hundreds of requests for help in ruling out Ebola in travelers. So far 12 cases merited testing, he said, but Duncan has been the sole traveler with the disease.
Duncan's death and the sick health care workers in the U.S. and Spain "intensify our concern about the global health threat," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
He said two Ebola vaccine candidates were undergoing a first phase of human clinical testing this fall. But he cautioned that scientists were still in the early stages of seeking new treatments or a vaccine.
A nurse at the Dallas hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian, on Thursday described a "chaotic scene" when the hospital faced Duncan.
Briana Aguirre, who has helped treat the first nurse who was infected, told NBC's "Today" show she felt exposed in the protective gear the hospital provided.
"In the second week of an Ebola crisis at my hospital, the only gear they were offering us at that time, and up until that time, is gear that is allowing our necks to be uncovered?" Aguirre said, adding that she piled on gloves and booties in triplicate and wore a plastic suit up to her neck.
The hospital said it used the protective gear recommended by the CDC and updated the equipment as CDC guidelines changed. Because nurses complained that their necks were exposed, the hospital ordered hoods for them, according to a statement from Texas Health Presbyterian.
Frieden said that Vinson never should have been allowed to fly on a commercial jetliner because she had been exposed to the virus while caring for the first Ebola patient.
Still, a CDC official cleared Vinson to board the Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to the Dallas area. Her reported temperature - 99.5 degrees - was below the threshold set by the agency and she had no symptoms, according to agency spokesman David Daigle.
Ebola patients are not considered contagious until they have symptoms.
Vinson was diagnosed with Ebola a day after the flight, news that sent airline stocks falling amid fears it could dissuade people from flying. Losses between 5 percent and 8 percent were recorded before shares recovered in afternoon trading.
Frontier has taken the aircraft out of service. The plane was flown Wednesday without passengers from Cleveland to Denver, where the airline said it will undergo a fourth cleaning, including replacement of seat covers, carpeting and air filters.
Even as Obama sought to calm new fears about Ebola in the U.S., he cautioned against letting them overshadow the far more urgent crisis unfolding in West Africa. Underscoring his emphasis on international action, Obama called European leaders Wednesday to discuss better coordination in the fight against Ebola in West Africa and to issue a call for more money and personnel to "to bend the curve of the epidemic."
On Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged continued support but made no specific new aid offers. China last month pledged $33 million in assistance and dispatched doctors and medical supplies.
GOP Lawmakers: Government credibility on Ebola is waning
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican lawmakers indignantly criticized the government response to the arrival of Ebola on U.S. shores Thursday in a tense hearing on Capitol Hill. Top public health officials defended their actions as public unease grew over the possibility of the deadly virus spreading widely here - something health experts insisted was a remote possibility.
"People are scared," said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "People's lives are at stake, and the response so far has been unacceptable."
Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he remained confident in the ability of the U.S. health care system to combat Ebola.
"Working with our partners we have been able to stop every prior Ebola outbreak, and we will stop this one," he said. "We know how to control Ebola, even in this period."
But even as he offered reassurances Frieden raised alarms of his own about threats to this country if the raging epidemic in West Africa, which has already claimed more than 4,000 lives, cannot be stopped.
"There are no shortcuts in the control of Ebola and it is not easy to control it. To protect the United States we need to stop it at its source," he said.
"One of the things I fear about Ebola is that it could spread more widely in Africa. If this were to happen it could become a threat to our health system and the health care we give for a long time to come."
Fears over the disease are on the rise as two nurses tested positive after caring for a patient in Dallas who died of the disease. One of them was cleared by the CDC to travel on a commercial plane after registering a slightly elevated fever, officials disclosed on Wednesday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told lawmakers Thursday that the first nurse to fall ill, Nina Pham, was being transferred to the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, for treatment. The second nurse, the one who took a commercial flight before being diagnosed, has been transferred to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta near the CDC.
Lawmakers had tough questions on hospital protocols and travel restrictions. Several Republicans suggested a partial travel ban for people who've been in West Africa.
Election-year politics were evident in the hearing room with midterm balloting less than a month away. Two House members in highly contested Senate races, Rep. Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, and Rep. Bruce Braley, Democrat of Iowa, left the campaign trail to appear at Thursday's hearing.
President Barack Obama canceled travel plans to stay at the White House and oversee government's response to the Ebola problem.
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