WASHINGTON -- Obama administration officials said Friday that a Dallas health care worker who handled a lab specimen from an Ebola-infected man from Liberia who died of the disease was on a Caribbean cruise ship where she has self-quarantined and was being monitored for any signs of infection.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement that the woman had shown no signs of the disease and had been asymptomatic for 19 days.
The government was working to return the woman and her husband to the U.S. before the ship completes its cruise. The White House said the State Department was working with an unidentified country to secure their transportation home.
The government of Belize reportedly released a statement on Thursday saying it had rejected a U.S. request to allow the cruise passenger to pass through the Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport, which services the Belizean capital.
In the statement, published by a local news network in Belize, the government assured the country's residents that the passenger 'never set foot in Belize.'
'While we remain in close contact with US officials we have maintained the position that when even the smallest doubt remains, we will ensure the health and safety of the Belizean people,' said the statement.
Psaki said when the woman left the U.S. on the cruise ship health officials were requiring only self-monitoring.
Two nurses from the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where the health worker on the cruise also works, have been diagnosed with the deadly virus after working directly with the Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan. Duncan died at Texas Health on Oct. 8.
Nurse Nina Pham was transferred late Thursday from Dallas to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland for further treatment, and was said to be in good condition.
Her colleague, Amber Joy Vinson, was transferred earlier in the week to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Posted by Unknown on Friday, October 17, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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