Ebola nurse on the move

First Texas Ebola nurse moved to Maryland

The first Dallas nurse to have contracted Ebola after treating an infected Liberian man is scheduled to be moved to a specialised medical facility in Maryland.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins says 26-year-old Nina Pham will be taken on Thursday (local time) from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

The NIH facility has one of four biocontainment units in the United States. Texas Health officials said Wednesday that Pham was in good condition and it wasn't immediately clear why she's being moved.

A second nurse who tested positive, 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson, has been transferred to a biohazard infectious disease center at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Pham and Vinson were involved in providing care to Thomas Duncan, who died of Ebola last week.

Meanwhile, seven people who had confirmed contact with the second Texas nurse diagnosed with Ebola during her visit to Ohio over the weekend are in voluntary quarantine and have not shown symptoms of the virus, county public health officials said.

Amber Vinson, 29, had limited contacts outside family after flying into the Cleveland area on Friday and returning to Dallas on Monday, a day before she was diagnosed with Ebola, though she did visit a retail establishment, officials said.

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"All identified persons that had contact with the visiting nurse have been contacted, are being monitored, and have no symptoms," Dr Marguerite Erme, medical director for Summit County, told a news conference.

Also, Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut is evaluating a patient with "Ebola-like symptoms," the hospital said in a statement.

The patient is one of two Yale University graduate epidemiology students who travelled to Liberia last month to advise the health ministry on using computers to track the disease, according to Laurence Grotheer, a spokesman for New Haven Mayor Toni Harp.

"Yale-New Haven Hospital admitted a patient late on Wednesday night for evaluation of Ebola-like symptoms. We have not confirmed or ruled-out any diagnosis at this point," the hospital said in the statement on its website.

A hospital spokesman said he had no further information on the patient.

When the two graduate students returned from Liberia, Yale officials earlier said they had not travelled into areas where Ebola was present. They initially asked the two to quarantine themselves for 21 days but last week rescinded that request, according to the university.

Article from www.stuff.co.nz