The Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola while treating a Liberian man who became the first person to die of the virus in the United States has received a blood transfusion from a doctor who recovered from the disease.
Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse confirmed the plasma donation from Dr. Kent Brantly, the first American to return from Liberia to be treated for Ebola. He had been working in that country on the international aid group’s behalf.
Nurse Nina Pham is the third Ebola victim to receive Brantly’s blood, which, because he is a survivor, carries antibodies to the virus. It was also given to aid worker Rick Sacra, now recovered, and U.S. journalist Ashoka Mukpo, who appears to be improving.
Pham, the first person to contract Ebola on U.S. soil, is being treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas. The 26-year-old was among about 70 people who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the patient who died from Ebola last Wednesday.
Brantly reportedly offered to donate blood to Duncan, but their blood types did not match.
Duncan’s girlfriend, her 13-year-old son and two older nephews – all of whom shared an apartment with Duncan for days while he was ill – so far have shown no symptoms, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said on CNN, according to Reuters.
Officials also reportedly are watching a Dallas person with whom the nurse was in direct contact with while she was contagious. Some reports have indicated that person is her boyfriend. Her pet dog has also been taken to an undisclosed location for monitoring.
Critiques over care
Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday linked Pham’s infection to a “breach of protocol.”
“I apologize if people thought I was critizing the hospital,” Frieden said at a Monday news conference.
Officials have not identified what went wrong. The CDC is now monitoring all hospital workers who treated Duncan and say health officials must rethink the way they approach Ebola.
Some experts also question the CDC’s assertion that any U.S. hospital should be prepared to treat an Ebola patient as the outbreak ravaging West Africa begins to spread globally. Given the level of training required to do the job safely, U.S. health authorities should consider designating a hospital in each region as the go-to facility for Ebola, they said.
“You don’t scapegoat and blame when you have a disease outbreak,” said Bonnie Castillo, a registered nurse and a disaster relief expert at National Nurses United, which serves as both a union and a professional association for U.S. nurses. “We have a system failure. That is what we have to correct.”
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
