Reports have emerged that a third Texas Ebola-infected nurse, who was in-charge of handling fluid samples from Liberian Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan, has now been quarantined onboard a cruise ship in Caribbean, along with her partner.
The nurse along with her partner is now waiting to be brought back to the United States.
The cruise ship, Carnival Magic, which is reportedly is now anchored at Belize, is carrying 4,633 people including 3,652 passengers.
According to local reports, the Belize Coast Guard has refused to allow anyone from leaving the ship, including the Belizean pilot on board.
The local reports also noted that the authorities also refused the couple to enter the city even to take the air ambulance.
A report in Channel 5 Belize stated that the cruise ship, Carnival Magic, arrived in Belize on 16 October and was supposed to leave Belize en route to Cozumel on 17 October at 5pm.
"The ship was scheduled to leave. However, it is still anchored in Belizean waters near State Bank Caye," the report said.
According to the US State Department, the unnamed Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse, set sail from Galveston in Texas on 12 October.
It said in a statement that the quarantined nurse on the cruise ship had no "direct contact" with Duncan and "has not had a fever or demonstrated any symptoms of illness."
Currently, two Texas nurses who cared for Duncan already have tested positive for Ebola.
Nina Pham was diagnosed with the disease on 11 October, just three days after Duncan died. She was flown on Thursday night to the National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, MD after delivering an upbeat but tearful greeting via video.
The second Texas health worker, Amber Vinson, was diagnosed with the symptoms earlier this week – a day after she flew with a fever on a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland back to Dallas.
Since then, the CDC has contacted the 132 passengers who rode with her. However, officials said on Thursday that Vinson may have shown symptoms as many as four days before they initially indicated. Now the CDC is busy tracking all passengers who were on her first flight to Ohio last week, reported Washington Post.
Pham and Vinson were among nearly 100 workers who cared for Duncan in the Dallas hospital. Cleveland prompted concerns over authorities' handling of the outbreak in the United States.
"It has been 19 days since the passenger may have processed the since-deceased patient's fluid samples," the statement said, adding that the worker had set sea before the Centre for Disease Control stepped up its monitoring programme.
The employee has been checked by the ship's doctor and is in "good health," the State Department statement added. "Following this examination, the hospital employee and travelling partner have voluntarily remained isolated in a cabin. We are working with the cruise line to safely bring them back to the United States out of an abundance of caution."
The passenger would be evacuated through the Phillip Goldson International Airport, the Belize Government said in a statement, adding that the risk was "very low."
