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Fort Detrick Scientist Quarantined After Possible Exposure to Ebola
After possibly exposing herself to the Ebola virus, a U.S. scientist has been placed in a special isolation facility at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Dec. 12, 2003). Working at the Army’s primary biological defense research facility, the researcher accidentally stuck herself with a needle last week while working with mice infected with a weakened form of the Ebola virus. The woman is now under observation in an isolation room at Fort Detrick and has shown no symptoms of Ebola, U.S. Army spokesman Chuck Dasey said. Immediately after the incident, the woman was allowed to go home because there was no risk of her spreading the infection, and she returned the next day to begin isolation, Dasey said. “She reported the incident appropriately to the clinic, and the staff there discussed it and determined there was no risk in her going home that night,” Dasey said. “If you get the disease and get sick, that’s when you would pass it on to people,” he added. The incubation period for Ebola lasts up to 21 days, but the woman will be kept in isolation for 30 days, Dasey said. If the woman does become ill with the disease, she will only receive “supportive care” because there is no known cure, he said (Avram Goldstein, Washington Post, Feb. 20).
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