They helped treat the first case diagnosed in the U.S., a Liberian national who died last month
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Oct. 14, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Public health officials are actively monitoring 76 Dallas hospital workers who may have been exposed to Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with the deadly virus in the United States.
Officials identified the workers after one of Duncan's nurses, Nina Pham, tested positive for Ebola, opening up the possibility that others might have been exposed through contact with either Duncan or his bodily fluids, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
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 news conference.
Doctors diagnosed Duncan, a Liberian national, with Ebola on Sept. 28 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. He died 10 days later, on Oct. 8.
Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are the three West African nations ravaged by the Ebola outbreak that began there last spring.
Two days following Duncan's death, Pham returned to the hospital with a fever. The next day, tests revealed that she had contracted Ebola from her patient, and public health officials began a frantic investigation to determine who else at Texas Health Presbyterian might have been exposed.
Officials also are still monitoring 48 people who may have been exposed to Ebola through contact with Duncan prior to his hospitalization. But Frieden expressed optimism Tuesday that this first pool of potential exposures will emerge without a single infection.
Two-thirds of the 21-day maximum incubation period for Ebola has passed and no one from that group has developed any symptoms, he said.
"They've now passed through the highest risk period and it's increasingly unlikely that they will develop Ebola," he said.
Pham is in stable condition, and said herself that she is doing well in a statement released Tuesday.
"I'm doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," Pham said.
Pham has received a blood transfusion from Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, a medical missionary who was infected while serving as an aid worker in Liberia.
"His plasma -- the clear part of blood, centrifuged to separate it from red blood cells -- is plentiful with antibodies accumulated during Brantly's own fight against Ebola several months ago," said Stefan Juretschko, director of Infectious Diseases Diagnostics at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, N.Y. "The amount of antibodies from Brantly serve as weapons to the virus and is far superior to the yet to be formed antibodies of the Texas nurse herself as she fights the disease."
source : CDC Monitoring 76 Hospital Workers in Dallas for Ebola Exposure
