Nurse Free of Ebola Visits White House, Gets Hug from Obama

Above Image: Screenshot of Nina Pham from the CBS station in Dallas-Fort Worth

Includes reporting from Deb Belt, Patch Staff

Ebola patient Nina Pham was released from the National Institutes of Health on Friday with news that she was free of the virus. And her next stop was a visit with President Barack Obama at the White House.

Pham had cared for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Duncan, who had contracted the virus in western Africa, died Oct. 8.

Ebola is not an airborne illness and can only be passed through exposure to bodily fluids and only when an individual is showing symptoms of the disease.

Pham was transferred to NIH on Oct. 16 after seeking treatment in Texas earlier in the week.

The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda is one of four facilities in the United States with special isolation facilities where Ebola patients can more easily be treated. Other specialized facilities are Emory University Hospital in Atlanta; Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha; and St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, MT.

“I feel fortunate and blessed to be standing here today,” Pham said in a brief statement, according to NBC Washington. “I am on my way back to recovery, even as I reflect how many others have not been so fortunate.”

President Obama met with Pham on Friday afternoon in the Oval Office and offered her a hug during their exchange.