Nina Pham tested positive for Ebola. The 26 year old nurse from Dallas, Texas was among the health care crew taking care of Eric Duncan. Ebola took Duncan’s life, October 8.
Prior to being transported to Bethesda, Maryland to receive more intensive treatment, Pham seemed to be in good spirits. She teared up saying, “I love you guys. Come to Maryland!” This video was filmed last night before to her departure from Dallas:
Today, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases held an optimistic press conference. He indicated Pham was in fair condition and said, “we fully intend to have this patient walk out of the hospital.” According to NBC News:
Nina Pham, the Ebola-infected nurse flown from a Dallas hospital to a National Institutes of Health isolation unit, is doing well, sitting up and eating, doctors said Friday. Pham, 26, is one of two health-care workers infected while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died at Texas Health Presbyterian hospital on Oct. 8.
“She (is) in fair condition,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters outside the Bethesda, Maryland hospital. “We fully intend to have this patient walk out of this hospital.”
Pham is tired after a long trip, hospital officials told reporters outside the NIH clinical center, a large research hospital that has a special isolation unit. “She is resting comfortably, She is interacting with the staff. She is eating,” said Dr. Rick Davey, deputy clinical director at the NIAID, one of the NIH institutes, who examined Pham.
But she’s also going to have ups and downs as her body fights off the virus, said Fauci. “You may start seeing a change in the status,” he said. Ebola patients suffer often violent vomiting and diarrhea. “She is very fatigued,” Fauci said. “This is a virus that wreaks havoc on you. This virus knocks you out.”
Last night, President Obama signed an Executive Order authorizing a call up of the reserves, “it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation United Assistance” if Ebola spreads widely.
Hazmat crews were called to a Houston suburb after a woman died in her home last night. She’d recently travelled to Nigeria.
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