ATLANTA: The second of two American nurses who became infected with Ebola while treating a Liberian man who died of the disease in Texas was released from an Atlanta hospital yesterday having been declared free of the virus.
“I’m so grateful to be well,” a smiling Amber Vinson, 29, told reporters at Emory University Hospital before hugging the doctors and nurses who had treated her since her October 15 arrival.
“While this is a day for celebration and gratitude, I ask that we not lose focus on the thousands of families who continue to labour under the burden of this disease in West Africa,” added Vinson, looking fit. The infections of the nurses in a Dallas hospital at the beginning of October illustrated the initial lack of preparedness in the US public health system to safely deal with Ebola, which has killed about 5,000 people in three impoverished West African countries — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — and raised fears of a wider outbreak.
The other nurse who worked at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Nina Pham, 26, was declared virus-free on Friday, left the Maryland hospital where she had been treated and met with President Barack Obama.
Vinson’s case caused wider alarm when it was revealed that she had flown from Texas to Ohio and back on commercial planes. Ohio state health officials are still monitoring 163 people in case they show symptoms of Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever that can only be transmitted through the bodily fluids of an infected person and is not airborne.
The Emory hospital declared Vinson virus-free on Friday, but she spent four more days in the facility before being discharged.
“After a rigorous course of treatment and thorough testing, we have determined that Miss Vinson has recovered from her infection with Ebola virus and that she can return to her family, to the community and to her life without any concerns,” Emory University Hospital’s Dr Bruce Ribner told reporters.
Ribner added, “We all recognise that there is a lot of anxiety, and that is understandable. But the American healthcare system has been successfully able to treat patients with the Ebola virus.”
Vinson is the fourth patient successfully treated for Ebola at Emory’s hospital. Vinson and Pham treated Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, who had travelled to Dallas in late September. He was the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States and he died on October 8.
With concerns mounting over the spread of the virus, the Pentagon said Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel is considering a recommendation from top military commanders for a “quarantine-like” 21-day monitoring period for all US troops returning from Ebola response efforts in
West Africa. REUTERS
NEW YORK: The father of a Connecticut third-grader sued her local school yesterday, saying his daughter was discriminated against and banned from school based on irrational fears of Ebola because she attended a family wedding in Nigeria.
Stephen Opayemi filed the lawsuit in US district court in Connecticut and asked the court to order the schools in Milford, Connecticut to immediately permit his daughter to return to class. Opayemi’s daughter has not experienced any symptoms associated with Ebola and her health is fine, the suit says.
REUTERS
