The nurse who has tested positive for Ebola in the US was identified on Monday as Nina Pham. Medical records show the Texas nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for a dying Liberian man repeatedly visited his room from the day he was admitted to the intensive care unit until the day before he died.
26 year old nurse Nina Pham became infected with Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who contracted the disease in Africa then came to the United States and died in a Texas Hospital last week.
She is in stable condition in an isolation ward in that same hospital.
Pham wore full protective gear when she treated Duncan. Authorities aren’t sure how she became infected but suspect she may have come into contact with the virus while taking off all that gear.
"If it is contaminated, there is the possibility that a worker will contaminate themselves and become infected in that process," Tom Frieden of US Centers For Disease Control And Prevention said.
All other health care workers who treated Duncan are now being monitored for signs of infection as are 48 other people who had contact with Duncan.
"All of those 48 contacts have been monitored daily," Frieden said. "None of them have developed fever or other symptoms as of now."
And US health officials are now reviewing procedures for handling Ebola cases and encouraging hospitals across the country to be ready.
"We have to rethink the way we address ebola infection control because even a single infection is unacceptable," Frieden said.
US President Barack Obama was briefed on the Ebola situation at the White House Monday
And in Liberia, the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, nurses and medical assistants have threatened to go on strike over hazard pay for working in high risk Ebola wards. They complain of inadequate safety equipment but so far most health professionals have been coming to work as usual.