DALLAS — Federal health officials on Monday urged the nation’s hospitals to “think Ebola” and launched a review of procedures for treating infected patients, while the World Health Organization called the outbreak “the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times.”
DALLAS — Federal health officials on Monday urged the nation’s hospitals to “think Ebola” and launched a review of procedures for treating infected patients, while the World Health Organization called the outbreak “the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times.”
In Texas, medical records showed that a 26-year-old nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for a dying Liberian man repeatedly visited his room from the day he was placed in intensive care until the day before he died.
Nurse Nina Pham was among about 70 hospital staffers who were involved in Thomas Eric Duncan’s care after he was hospitalized, according to the records. They drew his blood, put tubes down his throat and wiped up his diarrhea. They analyzed his urine and wiped saliva from his lips, even after he had lost consciousness.
Pham and other health care workers at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital wore protective gear, including gowns, gloves, masks and face shields — and sometimes full-body suits — when caring for Duncan, but Pham became the first person to contract the disease within the United States.
Her family told Dallas television station WFAA on Monday that she was the health care worker with Ebola. A rector at her family’s church, Hung Le, told The Associated Press that Pham’s mother told him Pham has the virus.
The Texas Christian University nursing school graduate was monitoring her own temperature and went to the hospital Friday night when she discovered she had a low fever. She was in isolation and in stable condition, health officials said.
Public-health authorities have since intensified their monitoring of other Dallas hospital workers who cared for Duncan.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said he would not be surprised if another hospital worker who cared for Duncan becomes ill because Ebola patients become more contagious as the disease progresses.
Ebola has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to WHO figures published last week.