Healthcare worker who handled Ebola specimen on cruise ship

A Dallas healthcare worker who handled a lab specimen from an Ebola-infected man has self-quarantined on a Caribbean cruise ship, according to a report by The Associated Press.

It’s not clear whether the worker has contracted Ebola, but State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki in a statement said the woman had shown no signs of the disease and has been asymptomatic for nearly three weeks.

{mosads}Two other healthcare workers in Dallas who had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the index patient for Ebola in the United States, have contracted the disease. Duncan caught the disease in Liberia and was discovered to have Ebola when he entered a Dallas hospital. He died on Oct. 8.

That has triggered new fears about whether the United States could experience a wider outbreak of Ebola. One of the two healthcare workers who contracted the disease took a flight from Cleveland to Dallas after showing symptoms, something magnifying those fears.

That another healthcare worker who handled a lab specimen from Duncan was on a cruise ship will likely increase questions for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is already dealing with criticism from Congress over its response to Ebola.

The Obama administration is working to return the woman and her husband to the U.S. from the cruise ship, the AP said.

The woman left the United States, Psaki said, when health officials were only requiring workers to self-monitor for Ebola signs.