"Diagnosing Ebola is very different from treating Ebola." That assessment, by Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer at Texas Health Resources, during testimony before a Congressional panel on Thursday, sums up a critical concern at the heart of the current Ebola scare. It was the challenge faced by staff at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas as they struggled in late September to identify and manage the case of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient ever diagnosed with Ebola on American soil. Duncan, a Liberian national, died of the disease on Oct. 8. The problem: the absence of an accurate, rapid test for Ebola, even in the disease's symptomatic stages.
