US Steps Up Response As Ebola Worries Grow
WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) — The revelation that a second Dallas nurse who is ill with Ebola was cleared to fly the day before her diagnosis raised new alarms as leaders of the nation's public health system prepared to defend their efforts to contain the deadly virus before a congressional hearing Thursday.
President Barack Obama directed his administration to respond in a "much more aggressive way" to oversee the Dallas cases and ensure the lessons learned there are transmitted to hospitals and clinics across the country. For the second day in a row he canceled out-of-town trips Thursday to stay in Washington and monitor the Ebola response.
Federal health officials who say they know how to shut down the disease within the U.S. were being called to testify in what was looming as a combative hearing by a House oversight panel on Capitol Hill.
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In prepared testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of NIH, said that the death of a Liberian man in Dallas and the subsequent infections of the two Dallas nurses as well as an Ebola diagnosis of a nursing assistant in Spain "intensify our concerns about this global health threat." He said two Ebola vaccine candidates were undergoing a first phase of human clinical testing this fall. But he cautioned that scientists were still in the early stages of understanding how Ebola infection can be treated and prevented.
Amid increasing anxiety over the Ebola response, the largest union of registered nurses in the United States is also calling on President Obama to mandate uniform standards and protocols for the treatment of the virus.
Deborah Berger, who is co-president of the Oakland-based National Nurses United, said they have been contacted by nurses from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas reporting ill-preparation by the hospital that treated Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, including leaving him in areas with other patients and sending his lab specimens though the hospital's pneumatic tube delivery system for sending samples.
"The result is that the entire tube system, which all lab specimens are sent, was potentially contaminated," she said at a Wednesday press conference.
Executive director of NNU RoseAnn DeMoro said the union has sent a letter to the president, urging him to mandate hospitals, provide full hazmat suits, hands-on training, a 2:1 nurse-to-patient staffing ratio and more for Ebola cases.
The hospital said it used the protective gear recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and updated the equipment as CDC guidelines changed. Because nurses complained that their necks were exposed, the hospital ordered hoods for them, according to a statement from Texas Health Presbyterian.
CDC Director Tom Frieden said that nurse Amber Joy Vinson never should have been allowed to fly on a commercial jetliner because she had been exposed to the virus while caring for the Ebola patient who traveled from Liberia.
Vinson was being monitored more closely since another nurse, Nina Pham, also involved in Duncan's care was diagnosed with Ebola.
Still, a CDC official cleared Vinson to board the Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to the Dallas area. Her reported temperature — 99.5 degrees — was below the threshold set by the agency and she had no symptoms, according to agency spokesman David Daigle.
Although California has no confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola, Bay Area public health officials aren't taking any chances.
Amy Nichols, Director of Infection Control at UCSF, said hospital workers are regularly trained in infection prevention.
"They're the same strategies that were in place in the early '80s when HIV came on the scene. As a matter of fact that's what drove many of these strategies. They work when they're done correctly," she said.
Ebola patients aren't contagious until they start displaying symptoms so it's critical that if hospitals start seeing people with flu-like symptoms who have either traveled to or been in contact with someone in an Ebola infected area, they let officials know immediately.
Vinson was diagnosed with Ebola a day after the flight, news that sent airline stocks falling amid fears it could dissuade people from flying. Losses between 5 percent and 8 percent were recorded before shares recovered in afternoon trading.
Frontier has taken the aircraft out of service. The plane was flown Wednesday without passengers from Cleveland to Denver, where the airline said it will undergo a fourth cleaning, including replacement of seat covers, carpeting and air filters.
As the CDC and Department of Homeland Security beefed up screening at five of the nation's busiest international airports last week, federal officials could decide California airports are next, depending on the number of international passengers and travel patterns.
The San Francisco and Los Angeles international airports already have CDC quarantine centers that are ready when needed. But unlike the five airports doing the screenings, none of the three Bay Area international airports have direct flights to Africa.
Even as Obama sought to calm new fears about Ebola in the U.S., he cautioned against letting them overshadow the far more urgent crisis unfolding in West Africa, where Ebola has killed more than 4,000.
Underscoring his emphasis on international action, Obama called European leaders Wednesday to discuss better coordination in the fight against Ebola in the countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea and to issue a call for more money and personnel to "to bend the curve of the epidemic." British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said he offered to consult with the Italians to add treatment beds in Sierra Leone.
On Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged continued support for the fight against Ebola in West Africa, but made no specific new aid offers. China last month pledged $33 million in assistance and dispatched doctors and medical supplies.
And France said that on Saturday, it will begin screening passengers who arrive at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport on the once-daily flight from Guinea's capital.
But it was Wednesday's development in Dallas that captured political and public attention in the United States.
Duncan originally was sent home when he went to the Dallas hospital's emergency room, only to return much sicker two days later. He died of Ebola on Oct. 8.
Frieden has said breaches of protocols led to the infection of the two nurses. More than 70 other health care workers involved in Duncan's care were being monitored.
Medical records provided to The Associated Press by Duncan's family showed Vinson inserted catheters, drew blood and dealt with Duncan's body fluids. Late Wednesday, she arrived in Atlanta to be treated at Emory University Hospital, which has already treated three Americans diagnosed with the virus.
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