The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that a Texas healthcare worker who treated Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan had tested positive for the deadly virus.
The apartment building appeared to be the home of the worker, who is in isolation in the ICU at the same hospital that treated Duncan, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
"A close contact has also been proactively placed in isolation," the hospital said in a statement, adding that the worker had asked for privacy.
The worker reported a “low-grade fever” on Friday and was tested, the CDC said in a statement. Preliminary tests indicated Ebola and the CDC confirmed those results on Sunday.
"This development is understandably disturbing news for the patient, the patient's family and colleagues, and the greater Dallas community," the CDC said. "The CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services remain confident that wider spread in the community can be prevented with proper public health measures."
On Sunday's talk shows, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the patient is a woman, and CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden used the female pronoun.
Theresa Pittard, 56, lives next door to the off-limits apartment building. She stood outside, watching a hazmat crew arrive.
Officials had pounded on her door at 5:30 a.m. and dropped off public health information about Ebola, she told the Los Angeles Times. The apartment management company advised tenants not to walk their dogs outside until the the lawn and surroundings had been decontaminated, she said.
"All of this is very intimidating," Pittard said.
Tyler Gattis, 28, lives in an apartment behind the building. He told The Times that he was accustomed to greeting his neighbor when he saw her heading to work in scrubs.
Gattis had been in Austin for the weekend. He learned of the Ebola case when he received an email from his landlord Sunday morning advising tenants to contact officials. He said he called the phone number included in the email and a woman told him about the Ebola case.
Gattis said he wasn't worried, however. Although officials called the patient a healthcare worker, Gattis was more specific.
"I'm sure, being a nurse, she monitored herself pretty well," Gattis said.
Earlier Sunday, the CDC's Frieden blamed what is thought to be the first U.S. transmission of the deadly virus on a breach in protocol.
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