Yahoo – AFP,
Jérôme Cartillier, 17 Oct 2014
Washington
(AFP) - President Barack Obama on Friday named attorney Ron Klain to coordinate
the US response to the Ebola outbreak, amid growing anxiety over its spread
beyond West Africa.
The new
"Ebola czar," as he was described widely in US media, will report
directly to Obama's Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco and National Security
Advisor Susan Rice.
President
Barack Obama names attorney
Ron Klain to coordinate the US response to
the
Ebola outbreak, amid growing anxiety
over its spread beyond West Africa
(AFP
Photo/Andrew H. Walker)
|
The
longtime Democratic aide is to begin his job soon, ensuring that "efforts
to protect the American people by detecting, isolating and treating Ebola
patients in this country are properly integrated but don't distract from the
aggressive commitment to stopping Ebola at the source in West Africa," the
White House said.
Klain is a
former senior aide to Obama, and served as chief of staff to both Vice
President Joe Biden and former vice president Al Gore.
He
currently heads Case Holdings -- a holding company founded by former AOL chief
executive Steve Case -- and is general counsel at technology-oriented venture
capital firm Revolution LLC.
Several
Republicans swiftly savaged Obama's appointment, saying he installed a
political crony with no medical experience to tackle a potential health
emergency.
"This
appointment is both shocking and frankly tone deaf to what the American people
are concerned about," said congressman Tim Murphy, who chaired a House
hearing Thursday on the fumbled US response to the crisis.
"Installing
yet another political appointee who has no medical background or infectious
disease control experience will do little to reassure Americans who are
increasingly losing confidence with the administration's Ebola strategy."
Asked by
reporters why the White House chose someone without medical experience for the
job, spokesman Josh Earnest said: "What we were looking for is not an
Ebola expert but rather an implementation expert."
US cases
A Liberian
man died from Ebola in Texas on October 8 and two American nurses who treated
him have tested positive for the virus that has already killed more than 4,500
people in hard-hit Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The
infection of the US nurses has embarrassed American health authorities, who
faced questions about how the disease -- which kills around 70 percent of those
it infects in West Africa -- had spread.
The first
Ebola-stricken nurse, Nina Pham, arrived late Thursday at a specialized US
government hospital in Maryland, and was in "fair" condition on
Friday.
"She
is very fatigued," said Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters.
"This
virus knocks you out."
Traveler
concerns
Meanwhile,
US health authorities expanded the number of airline passengers they wanted to
speak with after another Ebola-infected nurse, Amber Vinson, flew from Texas to
Ohio and back just days before being diagnosed with Ebola.
The CDC
said it was reaching out to those who flew on Vinson's outgoing flight on
October 10 from Dallas to Cleveland, as well as her return trip.
The
expanded outreach was "based on additional information obtained during
interviews of close contacts" of the nurse, the CDC said in a statement,
but gave no further details.
Vinson reported no symptoms and a low-grade fever, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared her to fly from Ohio to Texas on October 13.
Now, as
many as 750 passengers who rode the same plane on five different trips are
being sought, Frontier Airlines said, stressing that officials believe the risk
of Ebola transmission was quite low.
As fear of
Ebola spread across the United States, the Pentagon closed off a parking lot
and one entrance Friday after a woman who had returned from Africa recently
vomited outside the building.
The area
was closed off "out of an abundance of caution," the Defense
Department said in a statement.
And a Texas
health care worker who handled samples from the Liberian Ebola victim
voluntarily quarantined herself aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean.
She is
considered at "very low risk" of infection, and Carnival Cruise Lines
said the ship was headed back to Galveston, Texas where it would dock on
Sunday.
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