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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday it's creating an Ebola response team that is able to reach any U.S. hospital with a confirmed Ebola patient "within hours."
"I have been hearing loud and clear from health care workers around the country that they are worried, that they don't well prepared to take care of a patient with Ebola," CDC director Tom Frieden told a teleconference, two days after a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, identified as Nina Pham, tested positive for the deadly disease.
In order to minimize the risk to health care workers, Frieden noted the United States has to "sure up the diagnosis of people who have symptoms and who have traveled," urging every hospital to be ready to diagnose Ebola.
The CDC is also establishing an Ebola response team that will include experts in infection control, in laboratory science, in personal protective equipment, and in the management of Ebola units, Frieden said, adding the team will also have experts assisting with experimental therapies, public education and environmental controls.
"For any hospital anywhere in the country that has a confirmed case of Ebola, we will put a team on the ground within hours," he said.
The CDC chief also outlined plans to improve safety at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, including a site manager on the scene overseeing aspects of infection control like taking off personal protective equipment for every hour of the day
He said the initial 48 people who had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient on U.S. soil who died last Wednesday, have all passed more than 14 days, or more than two thirds of their risk period.
"While it wouldn't be impossible that some of them would develop the disease, they have now passed through the highest risk period," he said. "And it's decreasingly likely that any of them will develop Ebola."
The CDC also identified at least 76 health care workers who might have come into contact with Duncan or his blood and they all are being actively monitored, he said.
Frieden also said that the nurse who became infected with Ebola while treating Duncan "remains in stable condition."
Nurse Nina Pham, 26, said earlier in the day that she was " doing well," according to a statement from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
I "want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," Pham said. "I am blessed by the support of family and friends and am blessed to be cared for by the best team of doctors and nurses in the world here at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas."
The nurse had "extensive contact" on "multiple occasions" during the 11-day treatment of Duncan and her infection may be the result of a "breach in (care) protocol," Frieden said earlier this week. Enditem
