UPDATE: A top federal health official says a Texas health worker should not have been flying aboard a commercial airline after being exposed to Ebola.
The worker was diagnosed with the virus Wednesday, and officials are now contacting other passengers on the plane.
Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the risk to other passengers was low because the worker showed now symptoms while onboard.
The worker is the second to be infected after treating a Liberian man who died of Ebola last week at a Dallas hospital.
Frieden says the health care worker traveled to Ohio before she knew a nurse had been diagnosed with Ebola.
He says the worker should not have traveled by air because she had been exposed to Ebola.
The night before she was diagnosed with Ebola, a Texas nurse flew back to the Dallas area from Cleveland, according to health officials who are now trying to contact the other passengers.
The woman is the second nurse apparently infected with Ebola while caring for a Liberian man who died of the disease last Wednesday at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
The unidentified nurse flew to Cleveland on Friday, the same day a colleague, nurse Nina Pham, was hospitalized. Pham's diagnosis with Ebola was disclosed on Sunday.
The second nurse returned to Texas on Monday on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth with 132 other passengers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The airplane's crew said she had no symptoms of Ebola during her return flight on Monday. But Tuesday morning she developed a fever and on Tuesday night tested positive for Ebola.
Infected Ebola patients are not considered contagious until they have symptoms. But the CDC is asking passengers on Monday's flight to call the health agency so they can be monitored.
The flight landed in Dallas at 8:16 p.m. Monday, stayed there overnight, and underwent a thorough cleaning before returning to service the next day. The cleaning was consistent with CDC guidelines, according to a Frontier Airlines statement released by CDC officials.
The health worker's flight to Cleveland last week happened far enough in advance of her symptoms that the CDC sees no need to contact passengers on that earlier flight, said Barbara Reynolds, a CDC spokeswoman.
Health officials did not immediately release the reason for her trip or where she visited in the Cleveland area. The CDC notified the airline Wednesday morning.
The CDC is asking passengers on the Monday flight to call 1-800-CDC INFO (1-800-232-4636).
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