Latest US Ebola Patient Flew Frontier Hours before Diagnosis, CDC Seeking 132 Passengers
Jeff Edwards October 15, 2014
The second Texas healthcare worker to test positive for Ebola flew on a Frontier Airlines flight Monday evening and began exhibiting symptoms only a few hours later.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Frontier Airlines confirmed on Wednesday that a Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital employee, who was diagnosed with Ebola on Tuesday morning, flew on Frontier Flight 1143 from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) on Monday evening. Frontier and the CDC are in the process of reaching out to the 132 passengers that were onboard the same flight as the infected healthcare worker, whom Cleveland authorities have identified as Amber Vinson, 29.
The CDC stressed that according to Frontier cabin crew, Vinson showed no signs or symptoms of Ebola while on the flight. After being notified by the CDC of Vinson’s infection, Frontier took the aircraft involved out of service, even though the plane had been cleaned twice since the her flight.
Vinson is the second Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital employee to contract the disease. She was also part of the medical team treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who recently died after becoming the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S.
When it was learned that Duncan became ill after flying to the U.S. aboard a United Airlines flight last month, the CDC said there was no risk to fellow passengers and initially declined to name the airline and flight number. The CDC also insisted that because Duncan was not exhibiting symptoms during the flight, there was no need to contact or inform other passengers.
In this most recent case, however, because of “the proximity in time between the evening flight and first report of illness the following morning,” the CDC has chosen a more aggressive tactic.
The CDC is asking any passengers who were aboard Frontier Flight 1143 on Monday evening to contact the agency at 1-800-CDC-INFO.
[Photo: David Zalubowski, AP]
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Why in any logic I have been acquainted with in bio-statistics were any direct contact prohibited from travelling in public transportation or in contact with crowds until suitable containment was validated. Extra pay of course for the inconvenience. Lunacy!
Didn't this patient fly another flight before? Otherwise, how did they get infected in Texas and yet wind up in Cleveland to be able to fly (back) to Texas???