Second US health care worker tests positive for Ebola

Ebola Outbreak

A second health care worker at a Dallas hospital who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. has tested positive for the disease, CCTV America’s Jim Spellman reports.

The department said in a statement that the worker reported a fever and was immediately isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Health officials said the worker was among those who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan, who was diagnosed with Ebola after coming to the U.S. from Liberia. Duncan died Oct. 8.

In Europe, the WHO said the death rate in the outbreak has risen to 70 percent as it has killed nearly 4,500 people, most of them in West Africa. The previous mortality rate was about 50 percent.

Officials have said they don’t know how the first health worker, a nurse, became infected. But the second case pointed to lapses beyond how one individual may have donned and removed personal protective garb.

Canadian scientists may have found the vaccine that stops the devastating spread of Ebola. Human trials for VSV-EBOV, an experimental vaccine containing dead parts of the Ebola virus is underway in the U.S. Animal trials have so far shown encouraging results. Canada plans to donate up to 1,000 doses of VSV-EBOV to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak. CCTV America’s Kristiaan Yeo reports.

For more on Ebola and hospital protocol in containing the virus, CCTV America spoke with physician and medical journalist Ford Vox from Atlanta.

 Story compiled from The Associated Press and CCTV America reports.