Ebola patient contacted CDC before taking flight
DALLAS (KGO) -- ABC News has confirmed that a 29-year-old health care worker who was diagnosed with Ebola on Tuesday, contacted the CDC on Monday before she got on a Frontier Airlines flight from Ohio to Dallas.
According to a federal official with the CDC, 29-year-old Amber Vinson reported her elevated temperature was 99.5 degrees. Since she did not meet the 100.4 degree threshold for a fever, she was "not told she could not fly."
The official adds that Vinson was on the list of health care workers who were self-monitoring because she was part of a 77 person team who was caring for Eric Thomas Duncan, a Liberian man who died of the disease last week. However, the official says Vinson had "not reported any known exposure."
The official tells ABC News it's believed that Vinson was wearing PPE during all of her interactions with Duncan, so they still do not know how she was exposed.
Vinson was flown to Atlanta for treatment on Wednesday. She is the second hospital worker to be infected with Ebola after treating Duncan.
SFO says it's ready for Ebola threat
Vinson came down with a fever on Tuesday and drove herself to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, the same place where where she and nurse Nina Pham contracted the virus while treating Duncan. The two were part of a team of 77 who cared for the Liberian man who died on Oct. 8.
All are being monitored, but their travel is not restricted. It's something the head of the CDC says may have been a mistake, after learning that Vinson was on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 Monday. Her flight from Cleveland to Dallas was just one day before she started showing symptoms.
Frontier Airlines says it is working with the CDC to contact all 132 passengers on her flight and has now cancelled all future scheduled flights on that decontaminated plane.
"It's definitely very concerning," one traveler said.
President Barack Obama updated the nation on Wednesday afternoon, tempering the urgent need to control the disease, with words of reassurance.
"I want people to understand that the dangers of you contracting Ebola, the dangers of a serious outbreak are extraordinarily low," he said. "But we are taking this very seriously at the highest levels of government."
The head of the CDC, Dr. Tom Frieden, also addressed concerns Wednesday, saying there was little risk to other passengers.
"But we're putting into place extra margins of safety and that's why we're contacting everyone who was on that flight," he said.
Vinson's neighbors were also contacted. Her home and apartment complex, where she lives alone, are being decontaminated as health officials continue looking into how she and Pham were infected despite wearing protective gear
Concerns linger Wednesday, that some of the other health care workers who cared for Duncan and are now on administrative leave could also have Ebola.
"What we've been doing here today is reviewing exactly what we know about what's happened in Dallas, and how we're going to make sure that something like this is not repeated," Obama said.
In the meantime, Vinson was transferred to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where they have a bio-containment unit specialized to treat Ebola patients. Officials say she is very ill, but stable. For now, we're told that Pham will continue to be cared for in Texas.
The CDC is asking all 132 passengers on that flight to call 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636). After noon central, public health professionals will begin interviewing passengers about the flight.
ABC News reporter Marci Gonzalez contributed to this report.
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