Nina Pham, the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse who contracted Ebola after treating the now-deceased Thomas E. Duncan, will be flown from the Dallas facility to a special federal unit in Maryland today, Dr. Anthony Fauci told a House subcommittee today. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Pham, 26, would be moved later today.
Nurse Amber Vinson, 29, was transported to Emory University Hospital Wednesday night, which leaves no active Ebola cases at the Dallas hospital.
Texas Health Presbyterian spokesman Wendell Watson said the move is necessary because numerous employees are being monitored for symptoms of the virus and aren't available to work.
"With so many of the medical professionals who normally staff our intensive care unit sidelined for the continuous monitoring, we felt it was in the best interest of the hospital's employees, the nurses, the physicians, the community, to give the hospital an opportunity to prepare for tomorrow ... for whatever comes next," Watson said.
The Maryland unit, operated by the National Institutes of Health, is comparable to the special isolation unit at Emory, and a third such unit in Nebraska. A fourth special facility, in Missoula, Mont., is not yet ready to take an Ebola patient and does not know when it will be, a spokeswoman told the AJC Wednesday night.
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