Second Dallas Health Care Worker Contracts Ebola; Coalition Airstrikes Possibly Pushing ISIS Back From Kobani
BECKY ANDERSON, HOST: A second health care worker in the U.S. tests positive for Ebola, now allegations of poor training and a lack of safety protocols at the Texas hospital. This hour, a stark warning from the United Nations: the outbreak is picking up pace and the virus will spread unless measures are taken to stop it at source. Also ahead, ISIS fighters prepare to launch an attack on one of Iraq's major air bases as the dead and wounded pile up in a key battleground in Iraq.</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are many more graves ready here and the extent of the grief and the anger on display shows you the kind of problem Ankara is going to face--</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Abu Dhabi, this is Connect the World with Becky Anderson.</s>ANDERSON: A very good evening. It is 7:00 here in the UAE. The fallout continues in Texas as a second health worker tests positive for the Ebola virus. Now we don't know the woman's identity yet, but we do know that she had contact with Thomas Duncan who was the Liberian man who died from Ebola at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital last week. Another nurse who treated Duncan also contracted the disease. Health officials there say they are looking into how this virus could have spread.</s>DANIEL VARGA, TEXAS HEALTH RESOURCES: We are looking at every element of our personal protective equipment and infection control inside the hospitals. We don't have an answer for this right now, but we're looking at every possible angle around this.</s>ANDERSON: Meanwhile, a nurse's union is leveling troubling allegations at the hospital where both transmissions occurred. It says there were no protocols in place for dealing with Ebola and that medical workers were put at risk. Well, our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen reports from Dallas for you.</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Breaking this morning, only four days after critical care nurse, Nina Pham was found to be infected with Ebola a second health care worker has been diagnosed with the deadly disease. The hospital staffer at Texas Health Presbyterian is one of the 76 health care workers who provided care for the now deceased Ebola patient, Thomas Duncan. According to the hospital the staffer was immediately isolated after an initial report of a fever Tuesday. The CDC says they have interviewed the patient to identify any contacts or potential exposures in the community.</s>ROSEANN DEMORO, NATIONAL NURSES UNITED: Our nurses are not protected. They're not prepared to handle Ebola.</s>COHEN: Another infection on the heels of shocking, new allegations from unnamed nurses at the hospital who say there were no protocols to deal with Duncan.</s>DEMORO: On his return visit to the hospital, Mr. Duncan was left for several hours not in isolation, in an area where other patients were present.</s>COHEN: All this released by National Nurses Union. The union wouldn't say how many nurses came forward nor would they identify them. The nurses say protective gear they wore left their necks exposed.</s>DEMORO: The nurses raised questions and concerns about the fact that the skin on their neck was exposed. They were told to use medical tape wound around their neck that is not impermeable.</s>COHEN: The hospital did not address the allegations directly but in a statement said, "Patient and employee safety is our greatest priority and we take compliance seriously."</s>DR. TOM FRIEDEN, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: We're not waiting for the results of our investigation. We're immediately changing any procedure that we think can be improved to increase the safety of those caring for her.</s>COHEN: But an official close to the situation tells CNN in hindsight, Duncan should have been transferred to Emory or Nebraska, hospitals that are more than ready to treat Ebola. Remarkably, Pham, the first person to contract Ebola within the U.S., says she's doing well and feels blessed to be cared for by the best team of doctors and nurses in the world.</s>JENNIFER JOSEPH, NINA PHAM'S FRIEND AND FORMER COLLEAGUE: I know for a fact Nina is somebody who never shies away from safety. We have an entire department on infection prevention, infection control in the hospital. We're briefed almost monthly on infection control.</s>ANDERSON: Elizabeth Cohen reporting. Well, in Spain a nurse who contracted Ebola is said to be improving. And health officials are still monitoring more than 80 people for signs of the disease there. But the heart of this outbreak remains, of course, in Africa. The World Health Organization says nearly 9,000 people have contracted Ebola in West Africa alone and nearly half of those victims have died. But it warns, the epidemic may get far worse and that we could see 10,000 new cases a week by the end of the year. We're going to take a closer look at the global fight against Ebola when we talk to the head of the United Nations mission that's working to stop the deadly violence. Anthony Banbury recently spoke to the UN Security Council about the epidemic and he issued this warning.</s>ANTHONY BANBURY, UNMEER: We either stop Ebola now, or we face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan. The very best way to protect the people of non-infected countries is by helping the people of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to stop Ebola now where it is.</s>ANDERSON: Well, my interview with the head of UN's Ebola mission is coming up in less than 30 minutes time here on Connect the World with me, Becky Anderson. Well, ISIS appears to have gained more ground in Iraq. The Islamic Militants have surrounded one of Iraq's largest air bases. Meanwhile, to the north, Coalition air power has been focused on Syria along the border with Turkey. Huge plumes of smoke can be seen over this, the city of Kobani. Nick Paton Walsh on the phone from close to that border, very close to Kobani -- Nick.</s>WALSH: Becky, remarkable statement again, (inaudible) speaking on behalf of the coalition behind the airstrikes today. They said the last 24 hours, 18 airstrikes have hit Kobani or the area around it. That's after the day before, previous 24 hours, saying 21 had struck that conflict stricken city, a remarkable 39 blasts. Now I have to say from overlooking that, it does appear a lot calmer. The blasts are hitting further away from the center. And that might lead you to conclude that perhaps ISIS are being pushed back. That is what some activists are saying the Kurds have managed to do in one area to the east. And they've also managed to reach these two checkpoints. But still, it remains a remarkably complex task to evacuate those injured inside this conflict.</s>WALSH: Unprecedented coalition airstrikes helped the Kurds to take this hill west of Kobani, but at dusk they're under fire. This defender seems injured and stumbles. They rush to help. Yet his ordeal is beginning as another hell awaits the injured. A flurry of ambulances tells those anxiously awaiting at Soluch Hospital (ph) that the border is now open. Injuries, some that seem days old, most want nothing filmed, the dead brought in around the back. The Turkish army mostly let people cross, but sometimes close the border, said one doctor, who left Kobani 10 days ago. "Sometimes the army closes it for security," he says, "but most of the time it just seems arbitrary. The worst thing I remember inside was seeing a woman, a local governor of Kobani, call her sister, but an ISIS fighter answered the phone. She passed out in front of me." For some who emerge, it is too late. Two young fighters here, in turned where others from Kobani have been before them and others will surely follow. The dead bullet wounds were survivable, claimed the activist who washed their bodies in the morgue. They died from blood loss as they waited for the Turkish army to let them cross the border, he says. Do you think they wanted these men to die?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Definitely, I think the Turkish government wants that they die.</s>WALSH: There are many more graves ready here, and the extent of the grief and the anger on display shows you the kind of problem Ankara is going to face if indeed Kobani does fall to ISIS. Dark falls. The ambulances are still coming.</s>WALSH: Becky, we don't know what comes next. We don't know if ISIS will continue to fight for this city, or keep out of the border, which I'm sure they want to control more consistently, or whether they're simply tired of seeing their convoys struck by coalition air power so consistently. But a lull in the fighting, like we seem to have observed today, does potentially assist the Turkish government under increasing pressure to intervene, finding an increasingly angry Kurdish population today. In fact, the deadline expiring in their peace process where potentially a volatile and fragile ceasefire could potentially lapse and we could see further tension between those armed security forces in Turkey and the Kurdish population in the southeast here. There's a lot at stake over Kobani. It did seem today, though, as if the coalition air power has certainly stopped ISIS advancing -- Becky.</s>ANDERSON: Nick Paton Walsh on the border for you. While the eyes of the world are on ISIS in Syria and in Iraq, away from that conflict, and Benghazi is under fire, much of Tripoli in tatters. Libya is fighting for its life. We're going to tell you why today in particular could prove crucial to the recovery of that country. That's next.