A second health worker who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. tested positive for the deadly disease, Texas health authorities said Wednesday.
The worker, who is not yet identified, reported a fever on Tuesday and was immediate isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement, reports USA Today.
The hospital staff who treated Duncan, from Liberia, died on October 8. All health care workers involved in his care were asked to monitor themselves for symptoms.
The health worker still needs to undergo a confirmation test at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Authorities are now identifying the persons whom the worker got contact with in the past few days.
The Dallas Fire-Rescue Department has already disinfected the apartment complex where the nurse lived and briefed the neighbors of the situation, The New York Times reported.
The first infected nurse, 26-year-old Nina Pham, is now under stable condition and recovering in the same hospital.
The number of health workers infected with the disease is expected to rise as reports of mishandling Duncan surfaced. On Tuesday, nurses who took care of Duncan said through the National Nurses United there was no clear procedures on how to handle people infected with the virus. They said they only wore flimsy gowns, gloves without wristbands, the usual face masks while attending to Duncan.
The CDC has admitted it could have given the Presbyterian Hospital more help to contain the infection. Dr. Thomas Frieden, Director of the CDC, said that the agency would now have “response teams” which will immediately go to any hospital in the U.S. with a confirmed case of Ebola to train and supervise the treatment of the patient.
