Nina Pham, a nurse who contracted Ebola while treating a fatally infected patient, has sued the Dallas hospital where she worked, according to her attorney.
Pham and another Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas nurse, Amber Vinson, developed Ebola after caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian who died in October from the disease that causes severe hemorrhaging and organ failure.
Almost 10,000 people have died from Ebola in the past year in the western African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.More than 14,000 people who were infected have survived. On average, the disease is fatal to about 50 percent of those who get it, according to the WHO.
Pham and Vinson were part of the first medical staff to treat a confirmed case of Ebola in the U.S.Once diagnosed, Pham was transferred from the Dallas hospital to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and placed in a special isolation unit.
Vinson was treated at the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and also recovered.
Pham, who told reporters when released that she felt “fortunate and blessed,” later met with President Barack Obama at the White House.
Duncan, who died Oct. 8, has been the only Ebola fatality in the U.S. He is one of four people to have been treated in the U.S. after a confirmed diagnosis. More than 400 people were monitored by the CDC after suspected exposure.