This is bad news - first, from Yahoo/Associated Press:
WHO: 10,000 new Ebola cases per week could be seen
West Africa could face up to 10,000 new Ebola cases a week within two months, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday, adding that the death rate in the current outbreak has risen to 70 percent.
WHO assistant director-general Dr. Bruce Aylward gave the grim figures during a news conference in Geneva. Previously, the agency had estimated the Ebola mortality rate at around 50 percent overall. In contrast, in events such as flu pandemics, the death rate is typically under 2 percent.
Next, from The New York Times:
Ebola Test Is Positive in Second Texas Health Worker
Three days after a nurse who treated a Liberian man with Ebola was found to have the virus, a second worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas has tested positive for the disease, state and federal health officials said Wednesday.
The hospital worker, who was identified by a Dallas television station as Amber Vinson, 29, was part of the medical team that cared for the Ebola victim, Thomas Eric Duncan, after he was admitted to the hospital late last month and put in isolation. The worker reported a fever on Tuesday and was immediately isolated at the hospital.
And this little nugget of joy from Fox News:
Second Ebola-infected nurse ID'd; flew domestic flight day before diagnosis
The second nurse infected with Ebola at a Texas hospital was identified Wednesday as 29-year-old Amber Vinson, while authorities expressed concern that she took a domestic flight just one day before coming down with symptoms of the deadly disease.
"The second health care worker should not have been allowed to travel by virtue of being in an exposed group," he added. "Although she had no symptoms or fever [that met the threshold] of 100.4, she did report that she took her temperature and found it to be 99.5."
Vinson, who like Nina Pham is a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, was identified to Reuters by a relative. Vinson went to the hospital displaying symptoms of the disease on Tuesday morning, after taking a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth on Monday night. Federal health officials are now tracking down all of Vinson's fellow passengers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Wednesday.
We need to secure our borders now.
