A second nurse from Dallas who contracted Ebola is now virus free and will be released this afternoon from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Ga.
Amber Vinson, 29, is one of two nurses who contracted the virus earlier this month while caring for a Liberian Ebola patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. The first nurse also has been pronounced healthy and was sent home last week.
Vinson was transferred from the Dallas hospital on Oct. 15 to Emory's Infectious Disease Unit, which had successfully cured three patients of the deadly virus during the current outbreak in West Africa.
Vinson will be the fourth Emory patient to beat Ebola, which is killing 70 percent of its victims in Africa. She will be released at 1 p.m.
Vinson will make a statement at that time, but will not take questions from reporters. Dr. Bruce Ribner, medical director of Emory's Serious Communicable Disease Unit, will discuss Vinson's recovery and discharge at the media briefing.
Vinson is the seventh patient in the current epidemic to recover from Ebola after treatment in one of the nation's four biocontainment units.
Last week, Vinson's colleague, 26-year-old Nina Pham, was released from the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.
Pham, a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, also contracted the virus after treating the Liberian patient, Thomas Eric Duncan. Duncan died on Oct. 8.
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