Second Ebola Nurse Transferred To New Hospital As Obama Promises 'More Aggressive Approach"
As lawmakers met on Capitol Hill to discuss the United States' response to the Ebola virus, the second U.S. nurse infected with the virus was flown to a hospital outside of Washington for treatment.
Nina Pham, the first health worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital to become infected with the disease, was flown to the National Institutes of Health outside Washington on Thursday. The second health worker to be diagnosed with the disease, nurse Amber Vinson, has been flown from Dallas, Texas to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.
President Barack Obama canceled his second day of meetings to stay in Washington and monitor the Ebola outbreak, saying in a statement that the U.S. will approach the outbreak in a "much more aggressive way" than it has.
Meanwhile, lawmakers on Capitol Hill grilled the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as Dallas health officials, on their handling of the Ebola virus in the U.S. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has come under fire, first for turning away patient Thomas Eric Duncan when he complained of Ebola-like symptoms, and also for allowing nurse Vinson to fly on a commercial airliner on Monday despite having a slight fever.
Dr. Daniel Varga, the chief clinical officer for Texas Health Services, said at a House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting on Thursday that he and the hospital were sorry for not properly diagnosing Duncan on his first visit to the hospital. Duncan died of Ebola last week.
"Unfortunately, in our initial treatment of Mr. Duncan, despite our best intentions and a highly skilled medical team, we made mistakes," Varga said in written testimony to lawmakers.
"We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry."