American Nurse Exposed to Ebola Flying to NIH for Care

An American nurse who had been caring for Ebola patients in West Africa is expected to be admitted to the special isolation unit at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Thursday afternoon, becoming the third Ebola patient to receive treatment there.

The nurse was volunteering in an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone, reports WUSA TV.

She will be admitted to NIH’s special clinical studies unit for observation and to enroll in a clinical protocol, according to NIH officials. The special unit provides high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious disease and critical care specialists.

An NIH spokeswoman told The Hill she did not know whether the patient had reported symptoms of Ebola or has been tested for the disease.

Two American health-care workers who were treated for Ebola in the special isolation unit at the Bethesda campus earlier this fall both recovered from the illness.

The first was a doctor who was exposed to the Ebola virus while volunteering with patients in Sierra Leone; he arrived at the NIH Clinical Center Sept. 28,Patch earlier reported.

Then Texas nurse Nina Pham was flown to Bethesda in mid-October after she contracted the virus while caring for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Duncan died Oct. 8 from the infectious disease.

Besides caring for Ebola patients, researchers at NIH are working on an experimental Ebola virus vaccine, which has shown promising results, and has medical researchers planning to accelerate the pace of human trials.

The vaccine to prevent Ebola virus disease produced antibodies in all 20 healthy adults who received it in a clinical trial. Many of the test subjects also had a T-cell response to the injection, which medical authorities say is the key to protecting people from the disease when they are later exposed to Ebola.

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.

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»Credit: National Institutes of Health/Department of Health and Human Service