"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,” said a statement from Texas Department of State Health Services.
The Dallas home of the female nurse who has tested positive for Ebola has been sealed off with a police guard outside.
The nurse, who works at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, was part of a team caring for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan who died from the virus last week.
Her identity has not been released - Dr. Daniel Varga, of the Texas Health Resources, said during a news conference Sunday the worker and her family have 'requested total privacy.'
The Texas home of the female nurse who has contracted Ebola has been sealed off with a police guard outside
The nurse who lives in an apartment complex in Dallas, works at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was part of a team caring for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan
Shared areas outside her building such as hand railings have been decontaminated
Varga said a 'close contact' of the nurse has been 'proactively' placed in isolation.
A dog was reportedly inside the patient's apartment on Marquita Avenue, which Rawlings assured is showing no symptoms of Ebola and will be taken care of.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawling said the hazardous materials unit of the Dallas Fire Department has cleaned up and decontaminated the shared areas of her apartment complex.
Hazardous materials units have also cleaned out the nurse's car.
Health officials have interviewed the patient and are identifying any contacts or potential exposures.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Daniel Varga answers questions about the health care worker
Texas Health Presbyterian hospital, where Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan was admitted. The healthcare worker tested positive despite having worn protective gear
Wasn't high risk: Thomas Eric Duncan became the first person to die of Ebola in the United States last week. One of the healthcare workers treating him tested positive over the weekend and was not even a part of the originally identified 'high-risk' group
A reverse 911 call was sent out to a four-block radius of the complex and a team of 19 epidemiologists and disease detectives fanned out to speak with everyone in the area who came to their door.
Flyers were left at all homes within a four block radius.
Libby Franks and Kara Lutley, both 25, live about a block from the health care worker's apartment.
They said without a lineline they missed the calls and no-one had knocked on their door or left any notifications.
Lutley told Dallas News: 'It's hard because it's her privacy and you don't want to broadcast her name all over the world because she's sick, but it's a fine line.
'She's a nurse, so she knows what it could be,' Franks said.
'I hope she was being careful. I'm sure she was.'
Varga said that the worker wore a gown, gloves, mask and shield. He did not identify the the nurse and says the family of the worker has 'requested total privacy.'
Varga says the health care worker reported a fever Friday night as part of a self-monitoring regimen required by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said another person also remains in isolation, and the hospital has stopped accepting new emergency room patients.
Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., died Wednesday in Dallas.
Texas State Health Services Commissioner Dr. David Lakey, center, said: 'We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility'
'We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility,' Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in a statement Sunday. '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. They said 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.
Officials said they also received information that there may be a pet in the health care worker's apartment, and they have a plan in place to care for the animal. They do not believe the pet has signs of having contracted Ebola.
Judge Clay Jenkins, Dallas County's top administrative official, said the unidentified health care worker is a 'heroic' person who 'was proud to provide care to Mr. Duncan.' He said the health care worker's family has requested privacy because they are 'going through a great ordeal.'
Ebola victim: Mr Duncan carried Ebola with him from his home in Liberia, though he showed no symptoms when he left for the United States. He arrived in Dallas on September 20 and fell ill several days later
More than 4,000 people have died in the ongoing Ebola epidemic centered in West Africa, according to World Health Organization figures published Friday. Almost all of those deaths have been in the three worst-affected countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Ebola spreads through close contact with a symptomatic person's bodily fluids, such as blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen. Those fluids must have an entry point, like a cut or scrape or someone touching the nose, mouth or eyes with contaminated hands, or being splashed. The World Health Organization says blood, feces and vomit are the most infectious fluids, while the virus is found in saliva mostly once patients are severely ill and the whole live virus has never been culled from sweat.
Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., died Wednesday in Dallas. Duncan grew up next to a leper colony in Liberia and fled years of war before later returning to his country to find it ravaged by the disease that ultimately took his life.
Duncan arrived in Dallas in late September, realizing a long-held ambition to join relatives.
He came to attend the high-school graduation of his son, who was born in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast and was brought to the U.S. as a toddler when the boy's mother successfully applied for resettlement.
The trip was the culmination of decades of effort, friends and family members said.
But when Duncan arrived in Dallas, though he showed no symptoms, he had already been exposed to Ebola. His neighbors in Liberia believe Duncan become infected when he helped a pregnant neighbor who later died from it. It was unclear if he knew about her diagnosis before traveling.
Duncan had arrived at a friend's Dallas apartment on Sept. 20 - less than a week after helping his sick neighbor. For the nine days before he was taken to a hospital in an ambulance, Duncan shared the apartment with several people.
John F. Kennedy airport in New York City became the first American airport to
A Texas health care worker who treated the first state’s Ebola patient, has been tested positive for the virus, the authorities said.
According to the state’s health services, the health care worker had “a low grade fever Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing.”
The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital worker has tested positive for Ebola in a preliminary exam.
"Confirmatory testing will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta," the state public health laboratory in Austin said.
"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 to find out who he had been in contact with, or whether there were any potential exposures. They said that those who had contact with him “will be monitored based on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus.”
The care worker was reportedly treating the Liberian national, Thomas Eric Duncan, who became the first man to be diagnosed in the United States with Ebola. The man died October 8 in the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
Although no further cases of the often fatal disease have been discovered yet in the US, health officials in Texas were still monitoring 48 people on Wednesday who might have been previously exposed to the virus through Duncan.
"This is a very critical week," Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner, told the Associated Press. "We're at a very sensitive period when a contact could develop symptoms. We're monitoring with extreme vigilance."
A total of 18 employees are currently being monitored, officials at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas said at a briefing.
As of October 8, a total of 4,033 people have died out of a total of 8,399 registered cases in seven countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported. For now, Liberia is the worst-hit of all affected countries, with 4,076 cases and 2,316 deaths. It is followed by Sierra Leone, where there are 2,950 cases and 930 deaths.
According to the World Health Organization, the fatality rate associated with Ebola averages roughly 50 percent, but has ranged from 25 to 90 percent in past outbreaks.
In the meantime, Duncan’s relatives may sue Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas for his treatment, Saymendy Lloyd, a spokeswoman for Thomas Eric Duncan’s family said Friday.
The family say that Duncan was sent home the first time he asked treatment at the hospital. The records show he had a fever and abdominal pain. He also told medical personnel that he had recently arrived from Liberia where the virus is spreading.
“They should have done something better than sending him home,” Lloyd said. “There was no explanation at all of why they were sending him home with a 103-degree temperature.”
The doctors did not administer the experimental drug brincidofovir until his supporters called the hospital.
“That’s what we had to do. We had a phone chain — ‘Treat Eric Duncan, treat Eric Duncan’ — and that’s when he got the experimental drug,” she said.
“You cannot make a decision to give him medication, but you can make a decision to put him on dialysis? After you have experimented and had him lay there without any medication and his organs are dying away,” she said.
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