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New Texas nurse with Ebola had slight fever on airliner

REUTERS                                                          Wed Oct 15, 2014 5:10pm EDT

By Lisa Maria Garza and Terry Wade 

DALLAS  A second Texas nurse who had contracted Ebola flew on a commercial flight from Ohio to Texas with a slight temperature the day before she was diagnosed, health officials said on Wednesday, raising new concerns about U.S. efforts to control the disease.

Chances that other passengers on the plane were infected were very low, but the nurse should not have been traveling on the flight, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Thomas Frieden told reporters.

The woman, Amber Vinson, 29, was isolated immediately after reporting a fever on Tuesday, Texas Department of State Health Services officials said. She had treated Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of Ebola and was the first patient diagnosed with the virus in the United States.

Vinson, a worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, had taken a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday, officials said.

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Ebola Fight in Africa Is Hurt by Limits on Ways to Get Out

NEW YORK TIMES

The nurse survived, but according to the aid group that sent her to Liberia and arranged to get her out, Europe’s failure to establish a swift evacuation service for infected medical workers has become a serious hurdle impeding the battle against Ebola in West Africa.

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Dallas hospital learned its Ebola protocols while struggling to save mortally ill patient

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF DALLAS HOPSITAL'S LEARNING ON THE FLY TO COPE WITH ITS FIRST EBOLA PATIENT.

THE WASHINGTON POST           Oct. 15, 2014
By Amy Ellis Nutt, Abby Phillip and Joel Achenbach

DALLAS — The hospital that treated Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan had to learn on the fly how to control the deadly virus, adding new layers of protective gearfor workers in what became a losing battle to keep the contagion from spreading, a top official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

“They kept adding more protective equipment as the patient [Duncan] deteriorated. They had masks first, then face shields, then the positive-pressure respirator. They added a second pair of gloves,” said Pierre Rollin, a CDC epidemiologist.

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Ebola outbreak threatens peace, security, WHO chief says

GENEVA — The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is “unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, said Monday.

Chan, who dealt with the 2009 avian flu pandemic and the SARS outbreaks of 2002-03, said the Ebola outbreak had progressed from a public health crisis to “a crisis for international peace and security.”

“I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries,” she said in a statement delivered on her behalf to a conference in Manila, Philippines, and released by her office in Geneva. “I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure.”

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Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director

HUFFINGTON POST

By Sam Stein                                                              Updated Oct. 13 ,2014

BETHESDA, Md. -- As the federal government frantically works to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and as it responds to a second diagnosis of the disease at home, one of the country's top health officials says a vaccine likely would have already been discovered were it not for budget cuts.

Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, said that a decade of stagnant spending has "slowed down" research on all items, including vaccinations for infectious diseases. As a result, he said, the international community has been left playing catch-up on a potentially avoidable humanitarian catastrophe.

"NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,'" Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready."

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Ebola Protocol Was Likely Breached In Texas, Medical Officials Say

HUFFINGTON  POST                     Oct.12, 2014      11:08 AM
By

The Texas health care worker who contracted Ebola after providing care for an infected patient likely breached safety protocols, health officials said Sunday.

"Certainly there has to have been an inadvertent, innocent breach of the protocol of taking care of the patient within the personal protective equipment -- that extremely rarely happens," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "We've been taking care of Ebola patients since 1976. Groups like Doctors Without Borders who do that almost never have an infection, because of the experience of doing this."

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Extra caution amid Ebola screening at NYC airport

USA  TODAY                    Oct. 12, 2014

Melanie Eversley and Marisol Bello,

NEW YORK — As federal officials at New York's Kennedy International Airport stepped up efforts to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus with extensive screening of passengers arriving from countries hit hardest by the outbreak, passengers and employees were taking their own precautions.

Maria Uruchimadecriollo cleans a bathroom JFK Terminal 4 international arrivals in Jamaica, NY. Uruchimadecriollo is wearing a mask that her husband bought for her yesterday, with the hope that it would keep her safe from the Ebola virus. This is the first day that the airport will begin screening passengers for Ebola coming in from the affected areas in Africa.(Photo: Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY)

Agents with the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection screened travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, taking their temperature and observing them for other Ebola symptoms.

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U.S. lacks a single standard for Ebola response

USA TODAY                                   Oct. 12, 2014

by Larry Copeland

ATLANTA — As Thomas Eric Duncan's family mourns the USA's first Ebola death in Dallas, one question reverberates over a series of apparent missteps in the case: Who is in charge of the response to Ebola?

The answer seems to be — there really isn't one person or agency. There is not a single national response.

The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has emerged as the standard-bearer — and sometimes the scapegoat — on Ebola.

Public health is the purview of the states, and as the nation anticipates more Ebola cases, some experts say the way the United States handles public health is not up to the challenge.

Read Full Story
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/12/examining-the-nations-ebola-response/17059283/

CDC workers analyze Ebola details in the CDC's Emergency Operations Center in Atlanta.(Photo: David Tulis for USA TODAY)


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Dallas health worker who tested positive for Ebola wore ‘full’ protective gear

WASHINGTON POST                                                      OCT 12, 2014

DALLAS, TEX--  In the first apparent case of Ebola transmission in the United States, a Texas hospital worker who treated an Ebola-stricken Liberian man has tested positive for the deadly virus.

A police car drives past the entrance to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. (LM Otero/AP)

The preliminary test result was announced early Sunday, four days after the death of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas; the diagnosis has not been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Texas Patient Tests Positive for Ebola

                                                             

dshs.state.tx.us - News Release - October 12, 2014

A health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who provided care for the Ebola patient hospitalized there has tested positive for Ebola in a preliminary test at the state public health laboratory in Austin. Confirmatory testing will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The health care worker reported a low grade fever Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing. The preliminary ​test result was received late Saturday.

"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. "We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread."

Health officials have interviewed the patient and are identifying any contacts or potential exposures. People who had contact with the health care worker after symptoms emerged will be monitored based on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus.

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