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While Texas officials do not believe that Ebola patient Nina Pham's dog, Bentley, is in danger, they have called in experts from Texas A&M University to help with the unique situation. VPC
Nurse Nina Pham, 26, of Dallas with her dog.(Photo: Pham family)
DALLAS — A Dallas nurse diagnosed with the Ebola virus over the weekend graduated four years ago from Texas Christian University's nursing program, her family said Monday.
Nina Pham, 26, a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, became infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who had traveled to the United States in September from Liberia after contracting the virus from a pregnant woman in his neighborhood whom he helped get medical care. Duncan died Wednesday.
On Monday, Pham's pastor said she had received a blood transfusion from a "good" and "devoted" man who survived Ebola. According to her pastor and the non-profit medical mission group Samaritan's Purse, she received a transfusion of plasma from Kent Brantly, a Texas physician who survived the virus, Associated Press reported.
Rev. Jim Khoi said Pham is in good spirits, using Skype to communicate with her mom, and asking for prayers.
Pham, who grew up in Fort Worth, is the first person in the United States to contract the disease from a patient. She was diagnosed with the virus after she reported a low-grade fever.
One person has been identified to have been around Pham while she was potentially infectious. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is monitoring that person daily and the contact has showed no symptoms of the virus.
"People aren't sick when they don't have symptoms, and the sicker they get, the more infectious they may become because the amount of virus in their body increases," CDC Director Thomas Frieden said.
Frieden said his agency also is monitoring other health-care workers who treated Duncan and officials still are in the process of identifying all those who may have had contact with Duncan during his time at the hospital here. They have not identified exactly how Pham contracted the virus.
"The team worked hard through the day yesterday into the night yesterday and are still actively working today to interview each one of the large number of health care workers who might potentially had contact with (Duncan) while he was hospitalized," Frieden said.
A hazardous-cleanup company that decontaminated the Dallas apartment where Duncan was staying as well as the hospital room where he died began work on Pham's apartment Sunday, the same day health officials confirmed she had the contagious disease.
Officials have saved Pham's Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Bentley, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Monday. Bentley has been moved to an undisclosed location and is under the care of Dallas Animal Services.
Men in full protective suits helped remove Bentley on Monday from Pham's apartment. Texas A&M veterinary experts are monitoring the dog.
"There is great concern about how to protect this dog; how to treat this dog humanely while protecting the public," said Dr. Eleanor Green, Texas A&M's dean of veterinary medicine.
"When I met with her parents, they said, 'This dog is important to her, judge. Don't let anything happen to the dog,' " Jenkins said. "If that dog has to be The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, we're going to take good care of that dog."
In Spain, where another nurse was diagnosed with Ebola after taking care of two missionaries with the disease, authorities seized the woman's dog named Excalibur, euthanized it and incinerated its remains Wednesday despite objections from the woman's family.
The question of whether dogs transfer Ebola to other dogs — or to humans — is still up for debate. There just isn't enough research.
"There is no evidence ... no evidence that a dog can transmit this disease to people by licking or any other means," Green said.
Those caring for Bentley say he will not become a research animal to test any theory. "There are no plans to experiment on this dog," Green said. "Our only plan is to take care of the person's pet."
The dog will be monitored for at least 21 days. Those handling the pet will be in full protective gear during that time.
A 2005 CDC paper that studied Ebola antivirus in African dogs determined that the species can catch the virus, generally from small dead animals that the animals had scavenged near villages, but appear to be asymptomatic. It was unknown whether the dogs could shed the virus in their bodily fluids without showing signs of sickness, potentially transmitting the virus to humans before getting well on their own.
At the time, researchers found the primary point of infection for humans to be the slaughter of infected animals for food and human-to-human transfer, what is still considered true today.
Meanwhile, Spain's Ebola patient, Teresa Romero, 44, remains in serious but stable condition Monday with doctors cautiously optimistic that she will recover.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Nina Pham, left, and a friend are the photo posted on Pham's Twitter account, which has not been used in three years.
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