An American nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for a Liberian patient in Texas has been declared free of the virus and will leave the hospital on Friday, a spokeswoman told AFP.
The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, will hold a press conference at 11:30 am (1530 GMT) to discuss the details of Nina Pham’s release, the spokeswoman said.
Pham was the first US healthcare worker to be infected with Ebola while working inside the United States.
Her diagnosis was announced October 12. She was initially hospitalized in Dallas at the hospital where she worked, but was transferred to a specialized facility, the NIH Clinical Center for treatment, on October 16.
Her colleague, nurse Amber Vinson, was also infected while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, who died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on October 8.
Vinson’s family said earlier this week that she too was now free of the Ebola virus, which has killed more than 4,800 people in West Africa so far this year.
Both women worked in the intensive care unit at the hospital and had extensive contact with Duncan when he sick, though it remains unknown exactly how they were infected.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said a “breach of protocol” was to blame, and has since issued stricter guidelines for donning protective gear when caring for Ebola patients.
Ebola is spread though close contact with the sweat, vomit, blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person.
Healthcare workers are at particular risk of contracting Ebola. Late Thursday, a doctor in New York City who had been working in Guinea was found to be infected with Ebola.
A total of nine people with Ebola have been cared for in the United States. Only the Liberian patient has died of the virus here.
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