By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter Latest Infectious Disease News

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 15, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- A second health care worker who helped treat a patient who died of Ebola last week at a Dallas hospital has tested positive for the disease, health officials said Wednesday morning.

The unidentified woman reported a fever Tuesday and was isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Health officials interviewed the woman to identify any people who may have had contact with her, and those contacts will be monitored, according to a statement from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The preliminary Ebola diagnosis was made after a test late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin. A second test that's expected to confirm the diagnosis on Wednesday will come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The announcement of the second infected health care worker in Dallas came a day after the director of the CDC acknowledged that more health workers at the hospital could be infected. "It's possible we will see other people become ill," Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said at a Tuesday news briefing.

Both infected workers were part of a team of dozens of health care professionals and support staffers who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan, a native of Liberia who was the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. Liberia is one of three West African nations -- the others are Guinea and Sierra Leone -- that have been ravaged since the spring by the worst outbreak of Ebola in history.

Meanwhile, the first health care worker in Dallas to be diagnosed with Ebola, 26-year-old nurse Nina Pham, is in stable condition, and said in a statement Tuesday that she is doing well.

"I'm doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," Pham said.

On Tuesday, public health officials said they were actively monitoring 76 workers at Texas Health Presbyterian who may have been exposed to Ebola while treating Duncan. They may have been exposed to the Ebola virus through contact with either Duncan or his bodily fluids, Frieden said.

To prevent future exposures of health care workers, Frieden pledged to send a team of top CDC infection-control experts to any U.S. hospital that must treat an Ebola patient.

The rest is here:

Second Health Care Worker in Dallas Tests Positive for Ebola