Cruise Ship Passenger Isolated Due to Ebola Risk

A Texas hospital employee who may have handled lab specimens from an Ebola victim has entered voluntary isolation on board a Carnival cruise ship in the Caribbean.

According to Carnival, the worker, who has been monitored by cruise ship’s medical doctor and confirmed to be in good health, has shown no symptoms of the disease and will remain isolated until the ship returns to its home port Galveston on Sunday.

Although the passenger is reportedly healthy, the U.S. government is working with the cruise line to get the ship back to the United States “out of an abundance of caution,” the State Department said in a statement.

The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital employee did not have direct contact with the since deceased Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, but the individual may have had contact with clinical specimens collected from him, the State Department said. It has been 19 days since the passenger may have processed the since deceased patient’s fluid samples.

The employee has since performed self-monitoring, including daily temperature checks, and has not had a fever or demonstrated any symptoms of illness.

At the time the hospital employee departed the U.S. on the ship, CDC was requiring only self-monitoring.