Texas Nurse with Ebola Flying to NIH in Bethesda for Treatment

Ebola patient Nina Pham from Texas will be admitted to the special isolation treatment facility at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Thursday night.

Pham, a nurse, is being sent to a National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda for specialized Ebola treatment, CNN reports. Pham had cared for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Duncan died Oct. 8 from the infectious disease.

A doctor who had volunteered in Sierra Leone was admitted to NIH in late September following exposure to Ebola virus infection via a needle stick injury, reports WUSA TV. He was isolated in Bethesda and then sent home in early October to complete a 21-day observation period.

Pham’s condition has been listed as stable.

Another Texas Health Presbyterian nurse told NBC’s “Today” show Thursday that nurses there did not have mandatory Ebola training, except for an optional seminar that didn’t allow them any hands-on practice.

Earlier this week Montgomery County leaders pledged that health-care workers will receive more training on Ebola safety precautions after two patients were admitted to local hospitals with Ebola-like symptoms. Neither patient had the infectious disease, which does not have a vaccine, according to Montgomery County Health Officer Dr. Ulder Tillman.

Those two patients, one who was seen at the Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center in Rockville and the other in Holy Cross Hospital in Germantown, did not get tested for Ebola because their symptoms did not warrant testing, she said. Ebola symptoms are similar to influenza and malaria.

The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda is one of four facilities in the United States with special isolation facilities where Ebola patients can more easily be treated. Other specialized facilities are Emory University Hospital in Atlanta; Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha; and St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, MT.

NIH officials said in a statement that Pham was being transferred to its specialized care at the request of the Texas hospital.

“With many of the medical professionals who would normally staff the intensive care unit sidelined for continuous monitoring, it is in the best interest of the hospital employees, nurses, physicians and the community to give the hospital an opportunity to prepare for whatever comes next,” the hospital said.

»Screenshot of Nina Pham from the CBS station in Dallas-Fort Worth