BY LISA MARIA GARZA
(Reuters) – A health worker in Texas at the hospital where the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States died last week has tested positive for the deadly virus in a preliminary test, the state’s health department said on Sunday.
The worker at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital reported a low-grade fever Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement.
“We knew a second case could be a reality, and we’ve been preparing for this possibility,” said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the health service.
The worker helped care for Thomas Eric Duncan, who was diagnosed soon after arriving from his native Liberia, the hospital said. Duncan died in an isolation ward of the same Dallas hospital on Oct. 8, 11 days after being admitted.
Duncan was the first person to die of the disease in the United States.
Ebola has killed more than 4,000 people in the worst outbreak on record of the disease, affecting mostly the three West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The Texas healthcare worker is believed to be the first person in the United States to test positive for Ebola who has not been to West Africa.
Texas officials did not identify the worker or give any details about the person, but CNN said it was a woman nurse.
The worker was wearing full protective gear when in contact with Duncan, Texas Health Resources chief clinical officer Dan Varga told a news conference.
“We are very concerned,” Varga said. “We don’t have a full analysis of all of the care. We are going through that right now.”
“That health care worker is a heroic person who provided care to Mr. Duncan,” said Judge Clay Jenkins, chief executive of Dallas County.
The worker was self-monitoring and has not worked during the last two days, Varga said.
The worker was taking their own temperature twice a day and, as a result of the monitoring, the worker informed the hospital of a fever and was isolated immediately upon their arrival, the hospital said in a statement.
“This is obviously bad news, it is not news that should bring about panic,” Jenkins said.
SCREENING AT JFK AIRPORT
News of the second patient in Dallas came as U.S. authorities step up efforts to stop the spread of the virus.
New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on Saturday began the screening of travelers from the three hardest hit West African countries.
The worker in Texas tested positive 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 department said.
A hazardous materials team is working on decontaminating and police are guarding the health care worker’s apartment, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said. The patient’s car has also been decontaminated and it has been secured, he added.
Health care officials are monitoring 18 health care workers, Varga said.
Liberia is the country worst affected by the virus with 2,316 victims, followed by 930 in Sierra Leone, 778 in Guinea, eight in Nigeria and one in the United States, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Some 4,033 people are known to have died in seven countries from the outbreak, it said.
Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of an affected person or contamination from objects such as needles. People are not contagious before symptoms such as fever develop.
The United Nations said on Friday that its appeal for $1 billion to respond to the West Africa outbreak was only 25 percent funded and a surge in trained healthcare personnel was also needed to help tackle the crisis.
(Reporting by Jim Forsyth and Frank McGurty; writing by Jason Neely and Brendan O’Brien; editing by Anna Willard and Frances Kerry)
