3rd American Tests Positive for MERS
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from New York. A third American has now tested positive for the MERS virus. For the first time, the person contracted the virus right here in the United States. In this case, it was passed from a patient in Indiana who had previously been in Saudi Arabia where virtually all of the recent cases originated. This case may also have come from casual contact which was earlier thought to have almost been unheard of when it comes to MERS. But are U.S. hospitals ready for some kind of outbreak? Brian Todd is joining us. He's been look at this part of the question. Brian, how vulnerable is the U.S. health care system to this potential disaster out there?</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It certainly could be vulnerable in some places. Hospitals in the U.S. are ramping up and they need to, with this new case, the first one believed to be transmitted within the U.S. In addition to the existing two cases inside the United States, we went to some hospitals to look at how they prepared.</s>TODD (voice-over): Serious new warnings from disease specialists on the potentially deadly virus.</s>DR. DANIEL LUCEY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: We definitely should expect more MERS cases to arrive in the United States.</s>TODD: Experts say the explosion of air travel between the Middle East, where MERS originated, and the U.S. makes that likely. Is America ready? Hospitals tell us they've been warned for at least a year, been instructed by the CDC what to do if MERS arrives. Here's a first line of defense, a negative-pressure isolation room where MERS patients can be treated. It's got a special vent that moves virus-exposed air into a super filter.</s>LUCEY: The idea behind it is not circulate any germs or viruses to other parts of the hospital.</s>TODD: American health care workers have been told to heavily screen patients who have MERS symptoms, like coughing and fever, to ask them whether they've to the Middle East recently. They're making care workers wear protective gloves, eyewear, gowns and --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the mask our workers wear.</s>TODD: A mask that provides more filtration. These are safeguards in big-city hospitals. But some small towns might not be as prepared because their health departments have been hit with major budget cuts.</s>JACK HERRMANN, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTY & CITY HEALTH OFFICIALS: We might not have the number of epidemiologists or labortorians or others in the public health field responsible for investigating these cases or monitoring the surveillance systems in place.</s>TODD: In small towns or big cities anywhere, medical staffers are at higher risk.</s>LUCEY: As simple a thing as just washing hands with water and soap. It's really, really essential.</s>TODD: Doctor Dan Lucey is an infectious disease specialist who has battled MERS in the Middle East and SARS in Asia and Canada. He says sometimes the procedures they use to treat MERS patients are what make health care workers vulnerable.</s>LUCEY: To open up airways there are certain medicine that they give them that could aerosolize or put a lot more virus into the air in the shared breathing space that health care workers have with their patients.</s>TODD: Dr. Lucy says during the SARS outbreak, it got to the point where health care workers treating patients had to be monitored by other staff members to make sure they were changing gowns, gloves and masks between each patient and doing it in the proper sequence. He says it's possible that may have to happen again during this MERS scare -- Wolf?</s>BLITZER: The two cases of MERS in the United States were individuals who came back to the United States from Saudi Arabia. This third case is very different. Explain.</s>TODD: This is different, because, Wolf, this is the first case transmitted actually on U.S. soil. The other two cases, the previous two cases, those two gentlemen, who are both health care workers, got it in Saudi Arabia, flew to the United States and potentially exposed a lot of people. The people they may have come in contact with have been tested and those tests have come back negative. So far, there's some pretty good news there. But with this first case transmitted on U.S. soil, that's what makes it different. Now officials are going to have to track that person's contacts.</s>BLITZER: Very, very worrisome, Brian. Although, this third individual is apparently in very good shape?</s>TODD: That's right. He did not feel sick at all really during the time he had it. But, again, he may have been infectious at some point, so they've got to try to track the people who he came in contact with.</s>BLITZER: Good point. Brian, thank you. Up next, the ties that bind. A Congressional candidate in tomorrow's Pennsylvania primary has some major family political connections to the Clintons. So what will that make? Will that make a difference? Gloria Borger standing by. And two Nigerian informants tell CNN they know where Boko Haram training camps are located but they say no one will listen. We'll have a live report from inside the prime recruiting ground. Our Arwa Damon is on the scene.