US officials considering quarantines for returning healthcare workers

In Washington, President Barack Obama hugged a Dallas nurse who survived Ebola after catching it from a patient.

 

Quarantining healthcare workers returning to the United States from the Ebola "hot zone" was one of a number of options being discussed by officials from across the administration, Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Reuters.

 

The CDC-led discussions began on Thursday after Dr. Craig Spencer tested positive for the disease that day after returning to New York from West Africa.

 

Spencer, 33, a New Yorker who spent a month with the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders working with Ebola patients in Guinea, was the fourth person diagnosed with the virus in the United States and the first in its largest city.

 

He was awake and talking to family and friends on a cellphone and was listed in stable condition in Bellevue Hospital's isolation unit, said Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York's health commissioner. The CDC confirmed the diagnosis on Friday.

 

Officials urged New Yorkers not to worry. Obama's embrace in the White House Oval Office with nurse Nina Pham, who was declared Ebola-free on Friday, seemed to underscore the message that the disease's threat was limited.

 

Pham, one of two nurses from a Dallas hospital infected with Ebola after treating the first patient diagnosed with the disease in the United States, walked out smiling and unassisted from the Bethesda, Maryland hospital where she had been treated.

 

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the CDC also confirmed that the other nurse, Amber Vinson, no longer had detectable levels of virus but did not set a date for her to leave that facility.

 

Spencer finished his work in Guinea on Oct. 12 and arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Oct. 17.

 

Six days later, he was quarantined at Bellevue Hospital with Ebola, unnerving financial markets amid concern the virus may spread in the city. The three previous cases diagnosed in the United States were in Dallas.

 

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said city health department detectives were retracing all the steps taken by Spencer, but said the doctor poses no threat to others and urged New Yorkers to stick with their daily routines.

 

"We are, as always, looking at each individual contact," he said.

 

Health officials emphasized that the virus is not airborne but is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person who is showing symptoms.

 

Three people who had close contact with Spencer were quarantined for observation. The doctor's fiancée was among them and was isolated at the same hospital, and all three were still healthy, officials said.

 

U.S. stock markets shook off Ebola fears on Friday after paring gains late on Thursday following initial reports about Spencer's case.

 

The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed at least 4,877 people and perhaps as many as 15,000, predominantly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

 

Spencer's case brought to nine the total number of people treated for Ebola in U.S. hospitals since August. Just two, the nurses who treated Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, contracted the virus in the United States. Duncan died on Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where Pham and Vinson were infected.

 

Officials told New Yorkers they were safe even though Spencer had ridden subways, taken a cab and visited a bowling alley in Brooklyn between his return from Guinea and the onset of symptoms. Authorities on Friday declared the bowling alley safe.

 

New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo said that unlike in Dallas, where the two hospital nurses treating Duncan contracted the disease, New York officials had time to thoroughly prepare and drill for the possibility of a case emerging in the city.

 

"From a public health point of view, I feel confident that we're doing everything that we should be doing, and we have the situation under control," Cuomo said.

 

LEAVING THE HOSPITAL

 

Pham, who was transferred to the U.S. National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, from the Dallas hospital on Oct. 16, appeared at a news briefing and thanked her doctors.

 

Looking fit in a dark blazer and a turquoise blouse, Pham said that even though she no longer is infected, "I know that it may be a while before I have my strength back." She said she looked forward to seeing her family and her dog.

 

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama brought Pham in for a meeting to recognize her for doing her job at the Dallas hospital. Earnest said, "I think this also should be a pretty apt reminder that we do have the best medical infrastructure in the world."

 

Photographs of the meeting showed Obama hugging Pham. Reporters and television cameras were not allowed in for the meeting.

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he could not pinpoint any one factor that contributed to Pham's speedy recovery. He said it could be any of a number of factors, including the fact that "she's young and very healthy" and was able to get intensive care very quickly.

 

Pham received donated blood plasma from Dr. Kent Brantly, who contracted Ebola working in Liberia for a Christian relief group and survived after being treated with an experimental drug. Brantly was released from a hospital in August.

 

It is believed that antibodies that fight the virus in the blood of Ebola survivors can help other patients fight it, too. Pham made a point of thanking Brantly upon her release.

 

Cuomo said Spencer checked into the hospital when he realized he had a temperature of 100.3 degrees Fahrenheit, suggesting he may have caught the onset of symptoms early.

 

Obama's response to Ebola ran into fresh criticism from Republicans in Congress during a hearing on Friday.

 

Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, who chairs the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, blasted the "bumbling" administration response, characterized by missteps and ill-considered procedures to protect U.S. healthcare workers at home and troops in West Africa.

 

Republicans have made criticism of Obama's Ebola response part of their campaign to win full control of Congress in next month's elections.

 

New Yorkers offered a mixed reaction to the news as they headed to work on Friday.

 

Mollie Kirk, a 29-year-old laboratory worker who lives in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood, walked past a newspaper stand with "Ebola" splashed in large letters across the front pages as she headed toward a downtown subway.

 

"I'm much more afraid of this year's flu; it kills much more people," she said.

 

Raschell Martinez, a 27-year-old social worker who lives in the Bronx, said she was "very fearful" after emerging from the subway in Harlem, following what she described as an anguished ride. "Every time I go in the subway I try not to touch any poles," she said.  — Reuters