US Response To Ebola Scrutinized As International Situation Worsens

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
As American lawmakers met to discuss the federal response to the Ebola outbreak, officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the international death toll from the disease is expected to surpass 4,500.
According to Wall Street Journal reporters Stephanie Armour and Siobhan Hughes, members of Congress met with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Anthony Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Tom Frieden regarding Ebola containment efforts in the US.
During the meeting, Fauci told legislators that 26-year-old Nina Pham, one of two nurses who contracted the disease after treating a Liberian patient in Dallas, would be transferred to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) facility in Maryland, Armour and Hughes said. The other nurse, 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson, was flown to Emory University for treatment on October 15, according to NBC News.
Both Pham and Vinson work at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in the US. Duncan, 42, died on October 8 after having been admitted to the hospital on September 28. Pham was diagnosed with Ebola on Sunday, and Vinson originally showed symptoms on Tuesday.
Vinson was in Cleveland, Ohio when she first reported having a fever of 99.5 degrees, according to the Wall Street Journal reporters. After receiving the go-ahead from the CDC, she flew on a commercial airliner from Cleveland back to Dallas where she was placed in isolation at the hospital where she worked.

Dr. Frieden said that the CDC is currently attempting to contact all 132 passengers on her flight. Frontier Airlines, the company operating that flight, placed six crew members on paid leave for 21 days, while 13 nurses from Ohio hospitals that were also on Vinson’s flight were placed on paid leave Wednesday while their health is monitored.
Armour and Hughes also reported that seven other Ohio residents have been placed in voluntary quarantine and several schools in the area were closed, and officials at the Belton Independent School District in Texas cancelled classed through Friday and disinfected schools and buses after learning that two students were also on Vinson’s flight.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Dallas County commissioners were considering issuing a disaster declaration in the wake of the recent infections at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. The commissioners had scheduled an emergency meeting for Thursday afternoon, during which they considered a proposal which states that the county “has the potential to suffer widespread or severe damage, injury, loss or threat of life” due to the virus.
Likewise, the New York Times reported that a Yale University graduate student who had recently returned from Liberia was being treated for “Ebola-like” symptoms, and The Times-Picayune reported that a Louisiana State University employee had been placed in quarantine after returning to Baton Rouge from an Ebola training mission in Africa.
On Tuesday, officials from National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the country, told reporters that Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital failed to provide caretakers with adequate training or equipment after Duncan arrived at the facility. The hospital denied those accusations in a statement released Wednesday morning, claiming that they “followed” CDC guidelines “and sought additional guidance and clarity.”
In the wake of these types of reports, “both Democrats and Republicans grilled public health officials about their handling of the virus in the US, including the lack of a travel ban from affected countries,” said Armour and Hughes. Dr. Frieden said that banning travel would prevent the US to check people for symptoms if they arrived in the country through other means, and would hamper efforts to provide information to state and local health officials.
On the international front, Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, director of the World Health Organization’s global capacities, alert and response team, said during a Wednesday press conference that the Ebola outbreak was spreading out of control in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. She noted that WHO data indicates cases in those three nations are doubling every four weeks, the total death toll from the virus would top 4,500 by the end of the week.
“Nuttall said Ebola cases were growing in Guinea’s capital of Conakry but problems with data-gathering in Liberia, which has a significant under-reporting of Ebola cases in Monrovia, the capital, make it hard to draw any conclusions there,” AP reporter John Heilprin reported. “It will take months before the outbreak is stopped, she said, adding that WHO has identified 14 African countries where being prepared and containing Ebola is a top priority.”
Those 14 countries, Heilprin said, are Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan and Togo. According to Dr. Nuttall, those nations have been selected as targets because they border on countries that are currently being affected, or because they have a high rate of travel and/or frequently used trade routes.

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Related Reading:
> The Facts About Ebola: How The Disease Can (And Can’t) Be Spread
> Drexel Study Questions 21-Day Quarantine Period For Ebola
> WHO: “Drastic Action” Needed To Deal With West Africa Ebola Epidemic
> World Health Organization Ebola Website
> Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Ebola Website
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