Texas Health nurse Pham in fair condition, NIH reports

A Dallas nurse who was the first healthcare worker to contract Ebola while treating patient Thomas Eric Duncan is in fair condition after being transferred to a federal hospital, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday morning.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas nurse Nina Pham arrived in the Washington area shortly before midnight Thursday after traveling more than 1,300 miles in secured transport and was admitted to the clinical studies unit at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md. Her condition does not appear to be deteriorating, but Fauci would not comment during a media call Friday on her chances of survival.

“It's impossible to predict what will happen. But we hope Nina Pham will recover completely,” Fauci said.

He confirmed reports that prior to her arrival in Maryland, Dr. Kent Brantly, who has survived the virus, provided Pham a blood transfusion as part of her treatment. He was unable to confirm if she has since received any other experimental treatment to help rid her body of the Ebola virus.

No plans are currently in place for her colleague Amber Vinson, another nurse exposed to Ebola while treating Duncan, to also be admitted at the NIH facility, Fauci said. Duncan died of Ebola Oct. 8.

Vinson was transferred Wednesday night from Dallas to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, which is also now treating another Ebola patient: a male healthcare worker who was infected in Sierra Leone.

Texas Presbyterian Hospital parent Texas Health Resources, now waging a public relations campaign to help its tarnished image in the Ebola crisis, yesterday released a 56-second video of Pham speaking with a doctor before she left the Dallas hospital, seemingly in good spirits. The video was released at Pham's request, the healthcare system stated in a release. Texas Health Resources last week brought in public relations firm Burson-Marsteller to handle crisis communications.

Follow Virgil Dickson on Twitter: @MHvdickson