CDC, Dallas Hospital Feel Heat as Ebola Fears Grow
John Bacon, USA TODAY
11:36 a.m. EDT October 16, 2014
Ebola screening at four major U.S. airports was stepped up and some schools in Ohio and Texas closed Thursday as controversy intensified over efforts by federal health officials and a Dallas hospital to protect Americans from the deadly virus.
A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Thursday was set to examine what actions federal health officials are taking — and should be taking — after the death of an Ebola patient in Dallas and the infection of two of his nurses.
One of those actions is the airport screenings that began Thursday at Washington Dulles, Newark's Liberty, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago's O'Hare. Screening of passengers arriving from West Africa began Saturday at Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Agents with the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection are intercepting travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, taking their temperature and observing them for other Ebola symptoms. A passenger with symptoms will be isolated while personnel with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determine whether the traveler can continue the trip or requires hospitalization.
But it's not just airline travel from West Africa that is causing concern.
In Ohio, two schools were closed Thursday and a third was disinfected overnight, citing the slim possibility that staff members may have been exposed to Ebola on a domestic Frontier Airlines flight. An e-mail sent to parents by the Solon City School District said the schools were closed after district officials learned a middle school staff member may have traveled aboard the same airplane, though not the same flight, as Dallas nurse Amber Joy Vinson.
Vinson, 29, is one of two nurses who contracted Ebola after caring for infected patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Vinson had a slight fever when she took the flight from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday; CDC officials had approved Vinson for the flight because her temperature was below the threshold in CDC protocols.
Three Central Texas schools were closed after two students traveled on Vinson's flight. The Frontier Airlines plane that carried Vinson was flown to Denver International Airport late Wednesday and cleaned three times, the airline said.
Also Thursday, Texas Health Presbyterian defended its Ebola procedures, saying it followed CDC protocols. At a news conference Wednesday, leaders of National Nurses United had accused the hospital of mishandling care of Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
Deborah Burger, co-president of the nursing group, said nurses assigned to care for Duncan weren't given proper training or proper personal protective equipment and were assigned to care for other patients, potentially exposing them to Ebola. Duncan was left in an area with other patients for hours after he was diagnosed rather than immediately isolated, she said.
Burger also said blood samples taken from Duncan were sent through the hospital's general tube delivery system, rather than hand-delivered to a lab. She said that could potentially contaminate the entire tube system.
The hospital also failed to promptly remove waste contaminated with Ebola, which was stacked "to the ceilings," Burger said.
The hospital responded Thursday, saying in a press release that Duncan was quickly placed in isolation when he returned to the hospital and was suspected of being infected, that staff wore appropriate protective equipment and that none of Duncan's fluids ever leaked into the tube system.
Regarding hazardous waste, the hospital said it "went above and beyond the CDC recommendations. Waste was well-contained in accordance with standards, and it was located in safe and containable locations."
CDC protocols are just one of the Ebola issues to be raised as the House hearing.
"Just a few weeks ago, there was an urgent need to quickly stop the spread of Ebola in Africa, but now we also need to assure Americans that we are able to stop the spread here at home," said Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "There is no room for error when it comes to Ebola."
Contributing: Erin Kelly; WKYC-TV, Cleveland
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| Dulles airport in Washington, D.C. |
11:36 a.m. EDT October 16, 2014
Ebola screening at four major U.S. airports was stepped up and some schools in Ohio and Texas closed Thursday as controversy intensified over efforts by federal health officials and a Dallas hospital to protect Americans from the deadly virus.
A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Thursday was set to examine what actions federal health officials are taking — and should be taking — after the death of an Ebola patient in Dallas and the infection of two of his nurses.
One of those actions is the airport screenings that began Thursday at Washington Dulles, Newark's Liberty, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago's O'Hare. Screening of passengers arriving from West Africa began Saturday at Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Agents with the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection are intercepting travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, taking their temperature and observing them for other Ebola symptoms. A passenger with symptoms will be isolated while personnel with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determine whether the traveler can continue the trip or requires hospitalization.
But it's not just airline travel from West Africa that is causing concern.
In Ohio, two schools were closed Thursday and a third was disinfected overnight, citing the slim possibility that staff members may have been exposed to Ebola on a domestic Frontier Airlines flight. An e-mail sent to parents by the Solon City School District said the schools were closed after district officials learned a middle school staff member may have traveled aboard the same airplane, though not the same flight, as Dallas nurse Amber Joy Vinson.
Vinson, 29, is one of two nurses who contracted Ebola after caring for infected patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Vinson had a slight fever when she took the flight from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday; CDC officials had approved Vinson for the flight because her temperature was below the threshold in CDC protocols.
Three Central Texas schools were closed after two students traveled on Vinson's flight. The Frontier Airlines plane that carried Vinson was flown to Denver International Airport late Wednesday and cleaned three times, the airline said.
Also Thursday, Texas Health Presbyterian defended its Ebola procedures, saying it followed CDC protocols. At a news conference Wednesday, leaders of National Nurses United had accused the hospital of mishandling care of Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
Deborah Burger, co-president of the nursing group, said nurses assigned to care for Duncan weren't given proper training or proper personal protective equipment and were assigned to care for other patients, potentially exposing them to Ebola. Duncan was left in an area with other patients for hours after he was diagnosed rather than immediately isolated, she said.
Burger also said blood samples taken from Duncan were sent through the hospital's general tube delivery system, rather than hand-delivered to a lab. She said that could potentially contaminate the entire tube system.
The hospital also failed to promptly remove waste contaminated with Ebola, which was stacked "to the ceilings," Burger said.
The hospital responded Thursday, saying in a press release that Duncan was quickly placed in isolation when he returned to the hospital and was suspected of being infected, that staff wore appropriate protective equipment and that none of Duncan's fluids ever leaked into the tube system.
Regarding hazardous waste, the hospital said it "went above and beyond the CDC recommendations. Waste was well-contained in accordance with standards, and it was located in safe and containable locations."
CDC protocols are just one of the Ebola issues to be raised as the House hearing.
"Just a few weeks ago, there was an urgent need to quickly stop the spread of Ebola in Africa, but now we also need to assure Americans that we are able to stop the spread here at home," said Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "There is no room for error when it comes to Ebola."
Contributing: Erin Kelly; WKYC-TV, Cleveland
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