This is real money. Americas fears about ebola are spreading. And Public Officials are scrambling to contain both the disease and the anger about the poor response of Health Officials to it. Were going to cover this story from multiple angles, including how congress hammered the heads of the cdc today. But we start with fear. The reason why some classes were canceled in texas today. The fear centered on people who had been on a flight with a dallas nurse who contracted ebola, and fears that a yale graduate student might have the disease are unfounded. The student had been tested negative for ebola, after being admitted to the hospital with ebolalike symptoms and fever. They are waiting for centers for Disease Control, confirmation of the negative test result before completely ruling out ebola. Meanwhile the governor in illinois is ordering hospital to tests next week. In washington tonight, president obama authorized the pentagon to call up reserve and National Guard troops if they are needed to help respond to the Ebola Outbreak in west africa. The u. S. Has already committed to sending up to 4,000 troops to provide logistics and build treatment units. Also in washington, lawmakers got their first chance to grill the head of the cdc over the botched handling of the first ebola patient in the United States, Thomas Eric Duncan who died in dallas. Mike viqueira is at the white mike . Reporter ali at this point president obama is huddled with top advisors talking about ebola how to contain the controversy and any further spread here in the United States as well as the situation in africa where more than 4,500 individuals have already succumbed. Inside the meeting dr. Thomas frieden of the cdc. He suffered three hours of grilling on capitol hill today as an increasing number of lawmakers are now calling for a travel ban from west africa. On capitol hill, the criticism came from all sides. Peoples lives are at stake unacceptable f. Lawmakers were outraged that Amber Vincent who treated Thomas Eric Duncan was permitted to get on an airplane with a lowgrade fever despite assurances that proper protocols were in place. What were her symptoms . I have not seen the transcript of the conversation, my understanding is that she reported no symptoms to us. Reporter both sides called for tighter restrictions or an west africa to the United States. Borders may be porous especially in this part of the world. We wont be able to check them arrive. Reporter the white house agrees and says a ban would make the problem worse. If we were to put in place a travel or visa ban, it would provide a direct incentive for individuals seeking to travel to the United States to go underground and seek to evade the screening and not be candid about their travel history. Reporter for the second day in a row, president obama cancelled a trip to raise money for democrats, instead saying at the white house. Mr. Obama is also sending more personnel to west africa to help build hospitals. The situation in africa, where ebola has claimed roughly 4500 lives came up only briefly. We have had three recent cases of ebola in this country. We should be concerned about panic. Reporter and late today, ali we learned that the number of guard and reserve individuals who will be sent to west africa, just eight right now, eight engineers. There are up to 4,000 authorized to go. Also we have heard increasing calls for dr. Frieden to step down as head of the cdc and as of this moment the white house is Still Standing four square behind him. You have been great at reporting this. But bring in your washington veteran hat. I look at friedens performance today, i thought the congressmen were grandstanding. I thought there was a lot of stuff designed for congressmen running for election. I thought he did a better job than a lot of the analysts did. Reporter thats part of the process, ali. When it comes right down it to, yeah, the pal tigs tigs politicians have their talking points. And there are two who are locked in very tight races for the sentence. In colorado and in iowa. You know, the way you look at it, everybody is looking at this thing, this is priceless in terms of the amount of money they can be spending on campaign ads versus this free exposure here in washington. But its part of the process. They are letting off steam. It is part of their function. But i think really the crystallizing moment that has really piqued the lawmakers, yeah, they are going to put on a show, but a lot of people are questioning how that nurse got on that plane, how she was permitted to go on that plane after all of the assurances that all of the precautions and protocols were in place. Yeah, and those are valid questions from congressmen and americans. Mike good to see you. Mike viqueira at the white house. Ebola is taking a toll on the World Airline industry. Stocks have dropped about 13 in the last month, but today we learned that nearly half of americans are so concerned about ebola that they are avoiding International Air travel. Their fears have been raised by news that the next nurse in dallas took commercial Airline Flights before being diagnosed. She now in atlanta at one of four hospitals in the United States that have spent years preparing for diseases like ebola. Were joined by melissa chan in dallas. What is the les . Reporter well, she just left the facility here in texas. That means dallas for now, no ebola patients anymore, and she also left a statement. She released a statement, thanking the nurses and doctors and the hospital, really bearing no ill will considering the fact that she contracted ebola while working at this hospital. She issued the statement ahead of her big departure. This hospital will no longer treat the first nurse in dallas to contract the disease. We will be admitting to the clinic unit at the National Institutes of health, nina, 1. We will be supplying her with the stateoftheart care in our highlevel containment facility. Reporter the second nurse is already being treated in atlanta. All of this suggests a vote of no confidence on how the texas hospital handled ebola. On thursday a hospital representative apologized for mistakes in treating Thomas Eric Duncan, but still faced tough hearing. Has your organization in texas denfied where these specific breaches in protocol were that resulted in her infection, or alternatively the inadequacies of the protocol. We dont know at this particular juncture what the source or the cause of the exposure that caused nina to contract the disease. The dispute between onsite nurses and the hospital is also going, with nurses saying no one knew what the protocols were, adding that they felt, quote, unsupported, unprepared, and lied to. But the hospital shot back, saying quote a hospital followed the centers for Disease Control guidelines and sought additional clarities. And ali this is real money, and i do understand that you are interested in the economic angle. Well imagine this hospital, and if you were a patient that was not concerned about having ebola, but the fact that you have a child, perhaps who is sick, also obgyn, from what we understand they are seeing a drop in the number of patients showing up at this hospital. It will be interesting to see the Business Impact on this hospital in the future. It could be two things. It could be people are going to start using services of other hospitals or people start making decisions not to go to the emergency room or their doctor because they are worried about the hospital. Thank you for that. Every hospital in america should be gearing up to handle ebola cases, but the reality is not all hospitals are equally prepared to take on the challenge. Ill tell you why coming up. Plus ill putting dollar signs to fighting this disease on a global scale. Tell me what is on your mind. Minutes. Alaska, a state that depends on its Natural Beauty we need to make sure that we have clean air some are living off natures bounty were rich cause of all the resources we have. While others say they cant even afford Health Insurance the owners of this restaurant pay an extra 5. 20 an hour to provide Health Insurance communities trying to cope i just keep putting one foot in front of the other what can people hope for come election day . An Al Jazeera America special report amererica votes 2014 5 days in alaska all this week a firsthand look at the isil fight you can see where the bullets ripped right through. Refugees struggling to survive the government, they dont help us. But who is fueling the violence . If they had the chance to kill each other, to make more territory, they would do it fault lines, Al Jazeera Americas hard hitting. Today they will be arrested. Ground breaking. Theyre firing canisters of gas at us. Emmy Award Winning investigative series. New episode iraq divided the fight against isil only on Al Jazeera America so the way things stand now, the two dallas nurses infected with ebola are at two of only four hospitals in the United States equipped to isolate patients with the deadly disease. Health officials are trying to reassure us that most hospitals can safely treat ebola, but after seeing what happened in dallas that has been a difficult sell. What do those four hospitals have that others lack . Lets bring in jake ward who has been looking into this in dallas. Jake . Ali its really sort of extraordinary the way that ebola has revealed the u. S. Healthcare system. There are real shortages everywhere of everything. Everyone is trying to buy something at the cheapest possible price, the smallest possible quantities. I spoke with the man who chairs the Emergency Medical Committee for Dallas County here. In terms of winging it or really on the fly Decision Making that is not unusual for american medicine. I think its a misperception that we have this robust capability. We run out of stuff all the time. Doctors are out of a catheter and have to use a different kind. The Manufacturing Company has recalled this or that. Drugs are the same way. We have formulariries and things like that. They will run out of one particular drug, and you having to trade one for another. So its not shocking that were improvising here. Reporter you know, ali its really interesting the sort of improvational quality that the doctor was talking about there. We think of doctors as having all of the answers, but when someone comes through their doors, especially here in the United States, they dont have any idea what they are dealing with until they can get more information. And this situation has revealed how unprepared many and in fact most hospitals are. So we have four hospitals that for whatever reason drill for these things, have the right equipment, keep it in in a certain amount of stock, but even at emery or National Institutes of health, its not that they have the ability to treat many patients with ebola. They can take one or two. Reporter no. Thats absolutely right. Ali you are making the essential point here. The reason is they get government money specific to do that. The cdc commissions these to be the biocontainment units that can handle the really serious situations like ebola, but in tiny, tiny quantities. If we see even a dozen more patients in this the United States thats all we have got. And your average hospital is not equipped to handle this kind of thing. It speaks to the costsaving nature of healthcare here in the United States. And if somebody comes in unconscious and alone, theres no wayf knowing what they have or who they are. However in europe by 2020, you will be able to walk into hospital from any nation across any other border in europe, you will know who that person is, what their blood type is, their allergies, we dont have any of that. Were incredibly limited when it comes to these particular kinds of situations. Jake, they were trying to say they dont know how these two nurses how exactly the transmission occurred. But for the rest of us out here who are not dealing with people exposed to or infect with ebola, we had this one scare at yale university, there are questions of being in public areas, have they put out protocols for what regular people should be doing to try to keep safe from ebola . Well, you know, there isnt really a good consensus at this point of it. Its really a complicated situation because the consensus has not been arrived at. You are seeing some hospitals ignoring the cdcs guidance completely and going on to the guidance provided by doctors without borders. So theres no central authority. We imagine theres some overarching group, but it doesnt work that way. In fact in the u. S. We just make it up at we go along hospital by hospital, state by state. And the cdc made that point, saying were not a regulatory body. We put out guidelines and we hope people follow them. While Health Officials here in the United States scramble to contain ebola, the virus is spreading rampantly in west africa. 70 new cases are being reported day. Reporter yet another ebola victim is taken away in a body bag in this chineserun hospital in sierra leone, the doctors say one of the biggest problems is the lack of awareness. Translator many patients almost know something about the ebola virus. They often go into the rooms of ores once medical workers have left. Which greatly challenges our attempts to control the virus. Reporter the World Health Organization is now using the word rampant to describe the spread of ebola in sierra leone. Its long with liberia and guinea are the worstaffected nations. With fear and stigma surrounding the virus, many victims are being hidden away by scared relatives, and the w. H. O. Says the real death toll is likely to be much higher. Doctors without borders says it needs help to carry on. We have reached our limit in terms of increasing. Thats why were still a bit astonished is the slow and weak capacity of other actors, including state actors, and military organization actors like w. H. O. , like United Nations and so on. They are deploying as we speak, but we still dont see the result in the field. Reporter the w. H. O. Agrees theres a major shortfall in sup place. In its latest report it said liberia needs almost 3,000 beds to treat patients but only has 620. Guinea needs around 260 beds but has 160. And sierra leone only has about the quarter of beds needed. Thats concerning because if theres no room in hospital, people are left to die at home where they can spread the virus. Supplies are coming in from the international community, but its still not enough. The w. H. O. Has predicted the number of new cases is likely to increase from 1,000 to up to 10,000 each week by december. And says the world needs to act now or suffer the consequences later. The world needs to act now or suffer the consequences later. The world Bank Released a report calculating potential economic damage. It estimates the gdp losses in west africa alone could be as high as 32. 6 billion by the end of 2015. Dave evans is a senior economist and cowrote the report. This . Well, what is different from other health epidemics, is that rather than most of the cost coming from people getting sick and dying, this mostly comes from this fear factor. People are taking dramatic actions to avoid exposing themselves to the epidemic. I have been in sierra leone many times. We see dramatic reductions in people going to the market to sell their crops. And people traveling from ore countries to sell food in liberia and sierra leone. We see people who are mines that are shutting down as a result of Foreign Staff being pulled out, and workers being sent home. All of these come together to give us a strong sense of the Economic Impact. This 32. 6 billion really comes about as we see significant spread throughout the region if this doesnt come under control in the next few months. When you look at the economies of the countries directly affected right now. These are small economies, generally economies that suffered drastically in the recent past. Does a hit like this hurt countries like that more . Or small economies more better . It hits them much more. When you contrast this with sars which hit hong kong, when we hit three of the weakest economies in the entire world, even though there was growth, were looking at poverty rates of around 50 . Half of the people in these economies dont have are enough to eat, are already extremely poor, so an economic shock like that can shot those poverty numbers through the roof. Up to 75, 80 , that has real concerns not just for the Immediate Impact on the families and their children, but also for region. You studied this very carefully about how this affects africa. Have you thought about a spread further in africa. Theres a lot of inner africa trade now. That is something that has improved dramatically in the last five or ten years. Is it a real danger when it gets into bigger economies . Very much so. Many the epidemic isnt halted quickly then thats exactly the kind of spread we have seen. We can be optimistic with the fact that it was contained quickly in senegal and also in nigeria, but that doesnt vaccinate these economies from another appearance that isnt handled quite as expertly, and once that happens well expect