An American healthcare worker who contracted Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone was listed in serious condition after arriving at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland in the pre-dawn hours Friday morning.
The unidentified individual, who was flown in isolation from West Africa aboard a private charter medevac, arrived at the NIH facility at 4:44 am.
The patient was admitted to the center's Special Clinical Studies Unit under the care of infectious disease and critical care specialists.
Another unidentified American who had potential exposure to the NIH patient is being transported to the Atlanta area to be near Emory University Hospital which has a special facility to treat Ebola patients, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday.
That individual, who hasn’t shown symptoms of Ebola nor tested positive for the virus, will voluntarily self-isolate and be actively monitored for a 21-day incubation period.
“Out of an abundance of caution, CDC and the State Department are developing contingency plans for returning those Americans with potential exposure to the U.S. by non-commercial air transport,” the CDC said in a statement.
The CDC is reaching out to other people in Sierra Leone, including other Americans, who may be at risk for exposure after having had contact with the NIH patient who worked at an Ebola treatment facility.
The new NIH patient is the second with Ebola to be at the facility.
Nina Pham, a 26-year-old nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, was treated and released virus-free from NIH in October 2014.
Pham contracted the disease while treating a Liberian Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, who died from the disease on Oct. 8.