DALLAS, Oct 15 (Reuters) - A second Texas nurse who has contracted Ebola flew on a commercial flight from Ohio to Dallas with a slight temperature the day before she was diagnosed, health officials said on Wednesday, raising new concerns about U.S. efforts to control the disease.
Chances that other passengers on the plane were infected were very low, but the nurse should not have been traveling on the flight, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Thomas Frieden told reporters.
The woman, Amber Vinson, 29, was isolated immediately after reporting a fever on Tuesday, Texas Department of State Health Services officials said. She had treated Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of Ebola and was the first patient diagnosed with the virus in the United States.
Vinson, a worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, had taken a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday, the officials said.
The latest revelation raised fresh questions about the handling of Duncan's case and its aftermath by both the hospital and the CDC.
The CDC said earlier that it was asking all of the more than 130 passengers who shared the Frontier flight to call a CDC hotline.
In Washington, the White House said President Barack Obama had abruptly postponed a political trip he was to make on Wednesday to convene a high-level meeting about the government's response to the Ebola outbreak.
The move suggested a higher level of concern at the White House after reports emerged about Vinson, who government officials said was being transferred for treatment to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
At least 44,493 people have died in West Africa in the worst Ebola outbreak since the disease was identified in 1976, but cases in the United States and Europe have been limited. The virus can cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea, and spreads through contact with bodily fluids.
Frieden said Vinson had been monitoring herself for symptoms of Ebola and failed to report that her temperature had risen to 99.5 degrees before she departed for Dallas. Even so, Frieden said the risk to other passengers was "very low" because she did not vomit on the flight and was not bleeding.
He added that authorities had identified three people who had direct contact with her before she was isolated.
How pressedT would you be if you realized you were sitting next to ha
These damn flights, they needa suspend all flights everywhere until the sis Ebola is eradicated in the US Otherwise it's only a matter of time before the bitch arrives here in NYC
Are you kidding me!? A person who was in DIRECT contact with a known Ebola patient (one who died) was allowed wander around the country, as if she was treating a patient with a cold?!?!?
Ridiculous. She should have been contained in the hospital for a couple of days. Every nurse/doctor should
Mess at her knowingly allowing the possibility of the disease spreading.
