The head of the CDC along with other health officials were grilled on Capitol Hill Thursday at a hearing to examine Ebola in the United States.
Lawmakers and healthcare workers alike want to reduce the panic in the U.S. about the possible spread of Ebola.
“We should not panic,” Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Co., said. “We know how to stop Ebola outbreaks by isolating patients and tracing and monitoring contacts.”
“There’s a lot of fear of Ebola, and 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,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, Director of the CDC.
One of the more shocking moments of the nearly three-hour long hearing was Dr. Daniel Varga of the Texas Health Resources admitting a mistake, “We made mistakes. We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola and we are deeply sorry.”
Nina Pham, the first nurse diagnosed with Ebola in Texas is being transferred to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland late Thursday for further treatment, while the second nurse, Amber Vinson, is being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
