Obama administration seeks approval for Ebola testing at hospitals
In an unprecedented move, the Obama administration has proposed setting up an Ebola testing program at its hospitals, which are facing increasing scrutiny from lawmakers.
The administration announced Thursday that it would establish an Ebola screening program at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where doctors are testing for the disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would also establish a program to test at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center for Ebola, which is responsible for running the NIH-run hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
The move comes as Congress seeks to hold the Obama Administration accountable for the deadly outbreak in West Africa.
It is also the latest sign of how the Ebola outbreak is evolving, with the CDC and the NIH agreeing to work together to track down the virus.
The Obama administration’s proposal would make the CDC’s existing testing center at the Bethesda site operational, according to the administration.
“This plan will bring the CDC more efficiently to support the Ebola response and will allow for the rapid identification of patients who have the potential to transmit Ebola, as well as providing additional capacity to support CDC’s ongoing Ebola response efforts,” said Dr. Michael Wieser, acting assistant secretary for public health.
The CDC has been testing for Ebola since March, when a new patient from Liberia who tested positive came into contact with a patient who was in a similar position, according the CDC.
At the time, the CDC was already testing more than 1,000 people at the CDC lab and working with the NIH to test hundreds more.
The new CDC-funded testing center would provide an even more robust testing capability for all of the people currently being tested, said Dr, Michael Osterholm, director of the CDC division of infectious diseases.
Osterheim also said that the CDC would establish a testing center for people in West African countries who are not yet on the U.S. list of countries designated as a priority for the Ebola virus, but are deemed potentially infectious and will have to be screened at the U,D.C. facility.
The U.N. agency will be responsible for monitoring the Ebola screening effort, according Wiesor, and will also help to ensure that all test results are reported to the United States.
The program would be administered through the Centers for Infectious Disease Control, which has also begun testing at the White House and is also working to track and screen for Ebola.
“This is a very significant step forward in the CDC response to the Ebola pandemic and a great first step in the fight against the virus,” said David Satcher, director for the division of public health for the American Hospital Association, a major hospital association.
Osterholm said that while the CDC is a big part of the response to Ebola, he hopes that the other partners will be more active in the testing effort.
The agency is working with hospitals in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and Germany to run their own Ebola testing labs.
In an unprecedented move, the Obama administration has proposed setting up an Ebola testing program at its hospitals, which are…
