Sloppy protocols: second healthcare worker from Dallas hospital tests positive for Ebola

October 2014 – DALLAS - A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who provided care for Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for Ebola, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced. The unidentified health care worker reported a fever Tuesday and was isolated at the hospital, authorities said. The preliminary Ebola test was run late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin, and results were received at about midnight, authorities said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun confirmation testing. Health officials interviewed the patient, hoping to track down any contacts or potential exposures in the community, the CDC said in a statement. “While this is troubling news for the patient, the patient’s family and colleagues and the greater Dallas community, the CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services remain confident that wider spread in the community can be prevented with proper public health measures including ongoing contact tracing, health monitoring among those known to have been in contact with the index patient and immediate isolations if symptoms develop,” the CDC said in a statement.

The diagnosis follows days after nurse Nina Pham, 26, who also treated Duncan, was diagnosed with Ebola. Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola Sept. 30 and died Oct. 8. CDC Director Thomas Frieden had previously suggested that Pham may not be the only person who became infected while treating Duncan. “It is possible that other individuals could have been infected,” Frieden said. Ebola has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to recent figures by the World Health Organization. -ABC