The Ebola outbreak reaches U.S. after latest update reveals that a second nurse is being treated in Atlanta after contracting the virus.
A nurse in Dallas identified as Amber Joy Vinson is the third patient in the U.S. infected with the disease that already killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa. According to the latest report, the health care worker experienced an elevated temperature and is later confirmed having the infection after being tested positive for the virus. Vinson reportedly contracted the infection after being intensively exposed to Thomas Eric Duncan, the first confirmed case in the country who received treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Vinson is the second health care worker, following Nina Pham to acquire the Ebola virus after providing treatment to Duncan during his stay in a Dallas hospital. According to the family members of Duncan, Vinson had a direct contact with the patient's bodily fluids when she inserted a catheter and drew blood from him. After the nurse tested positive to the virus, she was then rushed to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on Wednesday; the same facility where three other infected patients from the location of the outbreak received treatment.
Emory University Hospital in Atlanta is just one of the four hospitals that are equipped with specialized units that could cater Ebola patients. The facility also claims that its isolation units are separate from other patients and has its own equipment which can possibly contain the virus causing the outbreak.
While Vinson is currently under observation in Atlanta, CDC is also attempting to track 132 passengers aboard the Frontier Airlines flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth on October 13. It was known that the infected nurse took the said flight a day before she manifest Ebola-related symptoms. Although Vinson did not show any symptoms of the disease during the flight, health officials are still going to locate the other passengers to detect if there is a transmission of the infection.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
