Second Dallas healthcare worker tests positive for Ebola

A second Dallas healthcare worker has tested positive for Ebola in a preliminary test, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced early Wednesday.

The announcement came after preliminary tests by the Texas Department of State Health Services' laboratory, the CDC said.

“The patient was isolated after an initial report of a fever and remains so now. Confirmation testing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's laboratory is being done. The health care worker was being monitored for fever and symptoms,” the CDC said.

“An additional health care worker testing positive for Ebola is a serious concern, and the CDC has already taken active steps to minimize the risk to health care workers and the patient,” the CDC said.

The second patient also works at Texas Presbyterian Hospital, where Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States, died from Ebola recently. A nurse who treated Duncan also contracted Ebola and was termed in good condition Tuesday by Texas Health Presbyterian.

Late Tuesday, the union National Nurses United held a news conference in which it detailed what nurses who claimed to work at the Dallas hospital said were improper protocols while Duncan was being treated there. The hospital responded with a statement saying patient safety is its greatest concern.

“As we have said before, because of our ongoing investigation, it is not unexpected that there would be additional exposures,” the CDC said Wednesday. It has sent an additional team to the Dallas hospital and now has a site manager there while Ebola patients are being treated who is overseeing the care given in the hospital's isolation unit, to include how hospital personnel are putting on and removing their personal protection equipment.

Neither the CDC nor Texas Health has yet detailed how the first healthcare worker stricken there, nurse Nina Pham, contracted Ebola while involved in Duncan's treatment.

Announcement of a second Dallas healthcare worker contracting Ebola comes a day after the World Health Organization projected that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa could grow to as many as 10,000 new cases a week within two months.

In the United States, calls are growing for designating a hospital in each state as a specialized Ebola treatment center. New York City already has named its Bellevue Hospital as its Ebola center.