AKRON, Ohio – Health officials say one person in Ohio has been voluntarily quarantined after having household contact with the Texas nurse who recently visited Ohio and was later diagnosed with Ebola.
Summit County officials say the individual self-quarantined Tuesday after the family of 29-year-old nurse Amber Joy Vinson was notified that she had developed Ebola symptoms.
EXTRA: Timeline of events
EXTRA: Ebola facts
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dispatched staff to northeast Ohio at the request of Gov. John Kasich and state health department teams were sent to the Akron area late Wednesday morning.
“We are in the process of identifying those people with whom this patient may have had close contact so we can monitor them and prevent any further spread of the disease. We’re also continuing to update local health care providers so they can be on the look out with us for other possible cases,” said Dr. Mary DiOrio, state epidemiologist and interim chief of the Bureau of Prevention and Health Promotion.
Summit County Medical Director Marguerite Erme said at a news conference Wednesday that the quarantined person hasn’t left home since Tuesday and that health officials will be monitoring the person’s condition. No name was released.
Erme says that the person is not showing symptoms and that there is no risk to the public.
Kent State University, where Vinson is a graduate and where some of her relatives are employed, issued a statement about its response.
Police have cordoned off the Tallmadge house visited by Vinson over the weekend with yellow tape and were blocking media from accessing the cul-de-sac where the home is located Wednesday.
Vinson had treated the Liberian man who died of Ebola in a Dallas hospital. She flew back to Dallas from Cleveland Monday before she herself was diagnosed with the virus.
The head of a union representing more than 9,000 nurses in Ohio says Gov. Kasich has assured her that he told both the Ohio Hospital Association and the state Health Department to make sure Ohio’s nurses have adequate protective gear and get the right amount of training. Members of the Ohio Nurses Association, which represents 9,500 nurses, said in a survey they were concerned about training, preparedness and communication from their employers ONA CEO Lori Chovanak said.
Meanwhile, two large Cleveland hospital systems, The Cleveland Clinic and The MetroHealth System, say some of their nurses and other employees were on the flight from Dallas with Amber Vinson days before she was diagnosed with Ebola. The hospitals said they believe the employees’ risk of exposure was low because available information indicates the Texas nurse didn’t have symptoms during the Friday flight to Cleveland.
A Cleveland Clinic spokeswoman said it had five nurses on the flight. A MetroHealth spokesman wouldn’t say how many employees it had on the flight.