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| Obama and Jonathan discussing how to tackle Ebola |
The woman
was among caregivers for Thomas Eric Duncan, who died Wednesday at Texas Health
Presbyterian Hospital. A state test finding that she had Ebola was confirmed
Sunday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making it the first
known case transmitted in the U.S.
CDC chief
Thomas Frieden said his agency will investigate how a worker in full protective
gear contracted the virus.
"At
some point there was a breach in protocol," Frieden said. "That
breach in protocol resulted in this infection."
The White
House said President Obama discussed the news with Health and Human Services Secretary
Sylvia Burwell, directing that the CDC "investigation into the
apparent breach in infection-control protocols at the Dallas hospital move as
expeditiously as possible."
Dallas
Police officers stood sentry outside the two-story beige-brick apartment
building Sunday in the leafy East Dallas neighborhood where the patient lived.
Across the street, a scrum of news media lined up along the curb. A few
neighbors wandered over to survey the scene.
Lynda
Edwards, who lives down the street, said she became alarmed when helicopters
began hovering overhead around 7 a.m. and news crews began arriving.
"It's
scary," she said, adding that televised news conferences from the CDC
haven't eased her fears.
"It
doesn't sound like we have a plan," Edwards said. "The public needs
to know what the plan is."
The phone
call from the CDC of the Ebola confirmation reached Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings
around midnight Saturday, triggering a new round of decontamination and new
steps to reassure residents.
"I
was disappointed but not surprised," Rawlings told USA TODAY. "The
odds were we would have another one."
For the
next seven hours, members of the Dallas Fire-Rescue Department descended on the
apartment building where the infected medical worker lived and decontaminated
everything outside and in the common areas of the building, including the
laundry room, entrance way, elevator and hallways, he said. They did not enter
the worker's apartment.
A man
dressed in protective clothing leaves after treating the front porch and
sidewalk.(Photo: Mike Stone, Getty Images)
As
workers in hazmat suits scrubbed nearby, Rawlings personally walked through the
neighborhood, talking to residents. As a precaution, the workers were ordered
to do a second cleaning of all common areas.
"We
knew the patient was being taken care of at the hospital," Rawlings said.
"We focused on the safety of the city."
City and
county officials, who are heading the response effort, will be increasing the
number of people monitored by CDC staffers in Dallas, Rawlings said. At least
19 hospital staffers who dealt with Duncan during his two hospital visits were
monitoring themselves for signs of Ebola. Now that group will be closely
monitored by the CDC team, which includes taking their temperature twice a day,
daily visits by CDC staff and restrictions on their movement, he said.
"This
shows the system's working," Rawlings said. "That's what's making me
feel most comfortable."
Rawlings
said the patient's dog, still inside the apartment, will soon be sent to a new
location to await a reunion with its owner. There were no plans to euthanize
the dog as Spanish officials did in a case last week, he said.
The Ebola
epidemic has killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa, the vast majority of
them in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. In the U.S., tougher scrutiny for
Ebola began Saturday at New York's Kennedy Airport, where federal Homeland
Security officials began screening travelers from those nations, taking their
temperature and observing them for other Ebola symptoms.
The
program will be added at four more U.S. airports in coming days. Rep. Michael
McCaul, R-Texas, said more action might be needed.
"There's
a lot of talk about banning flights," McCaul said on CBS' Face the
Nation. "I think we need to ... look at the idea of potentially
temporarily suspending the 13,000 visas that would be coming out of this
region."
Sen. John
McCain, R-Ariz., speaking on CNN's State of the Union, said the U.S.
needs "some kind of czar" to take charge of the Ebola response.
"Americans have to be reassured," he said.
The
Dallas caregiver reported having a fever Friday night and was hospitalized,
isolated and referred for testing within 90 minutes, Clay Jenkins, Dallas
County's chief executive and its Homeland Security director, said at a news
conference.
"While
this is obviously bad news, it is not news that should bring about panic,"
Jenkins said. "We knew it was a possibility that a second person would
contract the virus. We had a contingency plan in place."
The
woman, who requested anonymity, was listed in stable condition, Jenkins said.
Frieden cited
four steps being taken by the CDC: ensuring the woman is cared for safely,
identifying her contacts, treating all health care workers who cared for Duncan
as having potentially been exposed, and reviewing procedures used to protect
health care workers who treat Ebola patients.
Frieden
called the positive test "very concerning" but stressed that the
protocols for the care of Ebola patients are safe if done properly. He said
that removing the protective gear incorrectly, for example, raises risk.
The news
hit the region's health care community hard, said Steve Love, president and
chief executive of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council. The area's 85
hospitals have been training constantly for an Ebola case and holding
conference calls to discuss such things as what to do if a child with Ebola
shows up at an emergency room, he said.
"We
were hoping and praying there would not be any additional Ebola cases,"
Love said. "But it is not surprising that this happened."
Dan
Varga, chief clinical officer for the hospital group that includes Texas Health
Presbyterian, confirmed that the woman had worn full protective gear when
working with Duncan. He said the woman was not one of the 48 health care
workers who were being most closely watched and that the number of workers
being monitored could be expanded.
Duncan
initially sought treatment Sept. 25 and was sent home with antibiotics, despite
informing health workers he had recently been to West Africa. He returned three
days later in an ambulance and was diagnosed with the deadly infection.
Duncan
was the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S.
Dallas
Police stand watch outside the apartment where a health care worker at Texas
Health Presbyterian Hospital lives and tested positive for Ebola on Saturday.(Photo:
Larry W. Smith, epa)
Ebola is
spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick person or exposure
to contaminated objects such as needles. People are not contagious before
symptoms such as fever develop. The health care worker who tested positive,
along with the others who dealt with Duncan, was self-monitoring — watching for
symptoms consistent with early signs of Ebola, Varga said. The monitoring
guidelines include taking a temperature twice a day.
"That
health care worker is a heroic person," Jenkins said. "Let's remember
as we do our work that this is a real person who is going through a great
ordeal, and so is that person's family."
Last
week, the hospital defended the quality of care it provided Duncan, saying
treatment was not affected by the man's nationality or lack of health
insurance.
"Our
care team provided Mr. Duncan with the same high level of attention and care
that would be given any patient, regardless of nationality or ability to pay
for care,'' said Wendell Watson, the hospital's director of public relations,
in a statement.
Bacon
reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: William M. Welch in Los Angeles
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