--- title: Ebola-Free Dallas Nurse Nina Pham to Be Released description: A Dallas nurse who was infected with Ebola while treating a patient with the disease is free of the virus and will be discharged. canonical: https://time.com/3536743/ebola-dallas-nurse/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-24T15:13:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-14T01:54:23.000Z article:section: Health og:title: Ebola-Free Dallas Nurse Nina Pham to Be Released og:description: A Dallas nurse who was infected with Ebola while treating a patient with the disease is free of the virus and will be discharged. og:url: https://time.com/3536743/ebola-dallas-nurse/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt462e59d6d7bf6932/698762a7e20a872290a82a9d/nina-pham1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Ebola patient and nurse Nina Pham is flown into Frederick Airport and transfered to NIH og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ebola-Free Dallas Nurse Nina Pham to Be Released twitter:description: A Dallas nurse who was infected with Ebola while treating a patient with the disease is free of the virus and will be discharged. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt462e59d6d7bf6932/698762a7e20a872290a82a9d/nina-pham1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Dallas Nurse Released After Declared Free of Ebola > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=d48302d8-2db1-4fef-80b6-1b2b9e3c649f&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Contact Tracing: How To Trace The Spread of Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): Contact Tracing: How To Trace The Spread of Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EJ3m56cA.m3u8) (1:49)  _Published 2014-10-02. Health officials in the US are using a method known as contact tracing, to see who is at risk from Ebola._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Updated: Dec 14, 2023 1:54 AM UTCPublished: Oct 24, 2014 3:13 PM UTC by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Updated: Dec 14, 2023 1:54 AM UTCPublished: Oct 24, 2014 3:13 PM UTC A Dallas nurse who was infected with Ebola while treating a patient with the disease is free of the virus and has been discharged, the National Institutes of Health said Friday. Pham will head home to Texas Friday after first meeting with President Barack Obama, according to the President’s schedule. Nina Pham was admitted to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland on Oct. 16 and has made a speedy recovery. She fell ill while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who was diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas and died of the disease Oct. 8\. “We think of the National Institutes of Health as National Institutes of Hope, and hope went up a notch,” said NIH director Francis Collins in a press conference introducing Pham Friday. Pham said at that conference she felt “fortunate and blessed” to be Ebola-free. She’s now heading back to Texas to return to a normal life and spend time with her dog, who has also been declared free of the virus. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said they confirmed Pham’s health five times, calling Pham “an extraordinarily courageous and lovely person.” The [treatment unit](http://time.com/3517230/ebola-nina-pham-dallas-maryland/) in which Pham was treated was built in 2011 as part of a bioterrorism preparation plan. The seven-bed unit is designed to care for patients with serious communicable diseases and has a staff of 50 to 60 highly-trained infectious disease experts and health care workers. The unit has special ventilation systems and waste disposal systems. Pham received donated plasma from fellow Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, but it’s unclear how much of an impact that had on her recovery. Pham has asked for privacy for herself and her family. News of Pham’s impending release comes just hours after Bellevue Hospital in New York City confirmed it’s treating that [city’s first case of the Ebola virus](http://time.com/3535680/how-ready-is-new-york-city-for-ebola/). Emory University Hospital also announced on Friday that another Dallas nurse battling Ebola, Amber Vinson, no longer has the virus in her blood, though she will remain in the hospital for supportive care. ## Transcript Now that the first case of Ebola has been diagnosed on American soil, what's next? How can we keep the virus from spreading? Health officials are now turning to a process known as contact tracing to figure out who else might have been exposed to the virus. The likeliest candidates are the medical technicians who treated him. That's because Ebola is spread by direct contact with bodily fluids, which health workers could have come in contact with while treating the patient. Beyond that are the patient's family members or people who have been living in close quarters with him since he developed the symptoms, including fever. Vomiting or diarrhea. These people will be monitored for 21 days, which is the incubation period of Ebola, to see if they develop similar symptoms. They won't be quarantined, but they might be asked to avoid traveling out of the country and spending time in crowded public areas. If anyone in either of these rings appears infected. Health officials will extend their monitoring to include anyone those people have been in contact with. Including their family members, school classmates, or work colleagues, until no more Ebola symptoms are discovered. Beyond that, if people in this ring appear infected, they too would be monitored for symptoms for 21 days, and the analysis would spread to their contacts. The passengers on the patient's flights from Liberia to the US aren't considered at high risk of exposure, since he was not experiencing symptoms then. Of course, all of this depends on honest and accurate information from the patient and his contacts about where they have been and with whom. Something that has been an issue in West Africa. There the stigma against Ebola has led patients to flee health volunteers who are attempting to trace contacts or fail to report people they have interacted with. 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