As 2nd U.S. nurse with Ebola identified, worldwide fears spread about travel
A second health care worker in Texas tested positive for Ebola, U.S. officials said Wednesday, as concerns mounted worldwide over the possibility that airplane travelers could be exposed to the virus. U.S. President Barack Obama canceled a campaign trip to the Northeast, instead convening a meeting of his Ebola response team at the White House. Earlier, he had been due to hold a video conference with leaders from Britain, France, Germany and Italy to discuss the latest on the epidemic, which has spilled into the United States and Europe and sparked panic across the globe. The hemorrhagic virus has killed more than 4,400 people in West Africa since the start of the year, and the UN health agency has warned of the potential for a steep rise in infections in the coming months.
Individuals who are determined to be at any potential risk will be actively monitored.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statement
Airports in Britain, Canada and the United States have introduced stepped-up screening of travelers arriving from West Africa, where the disease has ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. But the European Union stopped short of recommending full continent-wide screening, suggesting instead that member states give medical information at airports to travelers from Ebola-hit countries. Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an alert for all passengers who traveled on an Oct.13 flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Texas, seeking to interview 132 people who flew on a plane with an Ebola-infected health care worker who had not yet become symptomatic. The woman was isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas late Tuesday with a fever, and the crew on the flight said she had not been symptomatic when she flew a day earlier. Ebola is only transmitted by close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person who is showing symptoms such as fever, diarrhea or vomiting.
ebola Americas