A week after her family announced that the Ebola virus could no longer be detected in her body, authorities are confirming that Texas nurse Amber Vinson is virus-free.
An Emory University Hospital spokeswoman said the Dallas nurse, who was diagnosed with the deadly virus after treating Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, will be released Tuesday.
Emory spokeswoman Holly Korschun told The Associated Press that Amber Vinson will be leaving the hospital Tuesday after a 1 p.m. news conference to make a statement after tests showed she’s virus-free.
Vinson and Texas nurse Nina Pham both became infected while caring for Duncan. The women, who worked at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, have both been declared Ebola-free. [AP]
Negative Test
The 5-year-old boy who was being monitored at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital after returning from Guinea has tested negative for the Ebola virus.
The boy was admitted to the hospital after experiencing a 103-degree fever. Authorities say that although the boy has tested negative, he will not be released from isolation until further tests confirm the first.
The boy, who has not been identified, will also undergo respiratory virus testing. [HuffPost]
Quarantine Debate
Amid scrutiny of Ebola policies implemented in New York and New Jersey that mandate medical workers returning from West Africa be quarantined, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says those workers should not have to abide.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), called for isolation of people at the highest risk for Ebola infection but said most medical workers returning from the three countries at the center of the epidemic would require daily monitoring without isolation.
New York and New Jersey are among a handful of states to impose mandatory quarantines on returning doctors and nurses amid fears of the virus spreading outside of West Africa, where it has killed nearly 5,000 people in the worst outbreak on record.
The Obama administration’s new guidelines are not mandatory, and states will have the right to put in place policies that are more strict. Some state officials, grappling with an unfamiliar public health threat, had called federal restrictions placed on people traveling from Ebola-affected countries insufficient to protect Americans and have imposed tougher measures.
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the Obama administration was less than thrilled that states implemented their own quarantines, adding that they did have the right to set them, however.
“We want to make sure that whatever policies are put in place in this country to protect the American public do not serve as a disincentive to doctors and nurses from this country volunteering to travel to West Africa to treat Ebola patients,” Earnest said.
Read more here…[Reuters]
PHOTO CREDIT: Handout | VIDEO SOURCE: News Inc.
