Wider Ebola outbreak in Africa would threaten U.S. health - CDC
By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's top public health adviser warned that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa could pose a long-term danger to the American healthcare system if it spread more widely in Africa. Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a congressional oversight panel on Thursday that there is a lot of fear of the disease, which has killed nearly 4,500 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea this year. "I will tell you. As the director of CDC, one of the things I fear about Ebola is that it could spread more widely in Africa. If this were to happen, it could become a threat to our health system and the healthcare we give for a long time to come," Frieden said. His comments come amid growing public worry about Ebola and questions about Frieden's credibility, following a series of missteps and reversals by the agency that have fueled Republican demands for a travel ban from West Africa to the United States and bipartisan calls for the appointment of an Ebola "czar" to oversee the U.S. government's response. President Barack Obama has defended Frieden. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers on a House subcommittee for oversight and investigations criticized the response to Ebola's appearance on U.S. soil. "The trust and credibility of the administration and government are waning as the American public loses confidence each day with demonstrated failures of the current strategy," said the panel's Republican chairman, Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania. The spread of Ebola to two Dallas hospital nurses who cared for Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan, and revelations that nurse Amber Vinson traveled aboard a commercial airliner while running a slight fever, have caused Frieden to backtrack on earlier statements about his confidence in the ability of American health officials to contain the disease. "It would be an understatement to say that the response to the first U.S. -based patient with Ebola has been mismanaged, causing risk to scores of additional people," said Representative Diana DeGette, the subcommittee's top Democrat. Fears of infection from Vinson's Monday flight from Cleveland, Ohio, to Dallas, a day before she was diagnosed with Ebola, led to school closings in Ohio and Texas and caused airline stock prices to fall on Wall Street. "It's no wonder that public confidence is shaken," said Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. At least 4,493 people, mainly in West Africa, have died in the worst Ebola outbreak since the disease was identified in 1976. The virus can cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea, and spreads through contact with bodily fluids. It is not airborne. Frieden apologized on Monday for remarks about the infection of Dallas nurse Nina Pham that suggested she was responsible for a breach in protocols that exposed her to the virus. After assurances that any U.S. hospital could care for an Ebola patient, the CDC director also conceded that protocols needed to be revised. The two stricken nurses have since been sent or are in transit to other hospitals better equipped to deal with Enola. (Additional reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Grant McCool)
