The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency approval for a new diagnostic kit to test blood for the deadly Ebola virus. It's the latest in a series of emergency authorizations after the federal government declared that the ongoing health crisis warranted the use of testing methods that have not cleared the ordinary regulatory approval process. It also came as officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that a technician working in a secure Atlanta laboratory may have come into contact with a small amount of a live virus that was part of an Ebola experiment. CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said in an email that the worker was being monitored for possible exposure. The blood-testing kits - part of an effort to be more proactive than responsive in the handling of the disease - earned the FDA's seventh emergency authorization since October after Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell in August declared that circumstances exist justifying the use for unapproved diagnostics to detect the Ebola virus.
