Head of World Bank urges thousands of medical professionals to travel to West Africa to fight outbreak
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Oct. 28, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- The second Dallas nurse who became infected with Ebola while caring for a Liberian man -- the first diagnosed case of the disease in the United States -- has recovered and will be released Tuesday from the hospital.
Amber Vinson, 29, has been undergoing treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, which has successfully treated several Ebola patients already, the Associated Press reported.
Vinson and fellow nurse Nina Pham became infected with the Ebola virus at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on Oct. 8.
Pham was released Oct. 24 from a National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md. The Atlanta and Bethesda hospitals are among four U.S. hospitals with advanced biocontainment facilities designed to treat highly infectious diseases like Ebola.
It's not clear how either nurse became infected with the virus that has been wreaking havoc in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since the spring.
Vinson's case made headlines after it was revealed she flew from Texas to Ohio and back in mid-October to prepare for her wedding before she was diagnosed with Ebola. Officials have been monitoring 164 people in Ohio who were thought to have had some level of contact with her, the AP reported.
Also Tuesday, the president of the World Bank appealed for thousands of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to volunteer and travel to West Africa and help contain the growing Ebola outbreak.
Jim Yong Kim said at least 5,000 health professionals and support staffers are needed to contain the epidemic, which has already infected more than 10,000 people and claimed nearly 5,000 lives.
Many potential volunteers are too scared to travel to West Africa, Kim said, according to BBC News.
On Monday, U.S. health officials issued new guidelines for monitoring people at risk for Ebola exposure -- a move designed, in part, to combat some of the fear surrounding Ebola infection.
The new guidelines apply to health care workers, whether they're returning home from the West African outbreak zone or caring for patients in the United States.
The guidelines establish four levels of risk -- "high" risk, "some" risk, "low" risk and "no" risk -- and recommend the sorts of restrictions and health monitoring that should accompany each category, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at an afternoon news briefing.
Under the guidelines, people at high risk of Ebola exposure would be confined to their homes in voluntary isolation, while people carrying some risk would have their health and movements monitored by local officials.
Those at high risk or with some risk would have daily in-person check-ups from state and local health departments for 21 days -- the outside limit for infection from Ebola. This active monitoring began Monday in the six states where approximately 70 percent of incoming travelers from West Africa are headed -- Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
source : Second Dallas Nurse Ebola-Free, Leaving Hospital
