Ebola-infected aid worker to be admitted to U.S. hospital

An American healthcare worker who tested positive for the Ebola virus in Africa is expected to be admitted to a National Institutes of Health clinic in Bethesda, Md., for treatment, federal officials said Thursday.

The unidentified volunteer, who had been working at an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone, will be transported to the United States in isolation via a chartered aircraft and taken to the NIH Clinical Center Special Clinical Studies Unit, one of the few U.S. facilities that are specially equipped to treat such cases. The institutes withheld information about the patient due to privacy issues.

The Bethesda unit is the same one that housed Dallas nurse Nina Pham, who was infected after she treated a Liberian man who died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Pham survived and is Ebola-free. Two other aid workers who were admitted to the unit after exposure to the virus were found to be uninfected.

“NIH is taking every precaution to ensure the safety of our patients, NIH staff, and the public,” the agency said in a statement.

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