国际英语新闻:Obama promises "more aggressive" response as second nurse diagnosed with Ebola

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama promised Wednesday to respond to Ebola "in a much more aggressive way," hours after a second nurse in Texas who tested positive for the disease earlier in the day was found to have taken a flight before she was ill.

"We're going to make sure that something like this is not repeated," Obama spoke after meeting with top Cabinet officials on the government's response to Ebola.

"And we are monitoring, supervising, overseeing in a much more aggressive way exactly what's taken place in Dallas initially, and making sure that the lessons learned are then transmitted to hospitals and clinics all across the country."

The nurse, identified as Amber Joy Vinson in the U.S. media, reported to a Dallas hospital with a low-grade fever and was isolated Tuesday morning. A preliminary test conducted by a Texas state laboratory showed she contracted Ebola.

Even more surprising, she had taken a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Dallas/Fort Worth on Oct. 13, the day before she reported symptoms.

"This second health care worker case is very concerning," Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tom Frieden told a teleconference.

He said the patient traveled to Ohio before it was known that the first nurse was ill and at the moment the healthcare team that provided care for 42-year-old Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, was undergoing self-monitoring.

Duncan became the first person diagnosed with Ebola on American soil on Sept. 30. He arrived in the U.S. from Liberia on Sept. 20 and died Oct. 8.

Frieden also noted that the woman found her temperature was 99. 5 Fahrenheit (37.5 degrees Celsius) before she traveled Monday. It did not meet the fever threshold of 100.4 (38 degrees Celsius), but it did underscore the nurse "should not have traveled, should not have been allowed to travel" given her recent exposure to an Ebola patient, the CDC chief said.