Center for Disease Control (CDC) Director Tom Frieden says federal health officials are assisting Texas health care workers in monitoring those potentially exposed to the lone U.S. Ebola patient. UPI/Kevin Dietsch |
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DALLAS, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Texas officials say the Ebola patient, currently being cared for under quarantine at a Dallas hospital, had contact with 80 people after he began presenting with symptoms of the deadly virus. Those 80, including several young children, are being monitored by health care workers in Texas to ensure the virus doesn't spread further.
The family of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola inside the United States, has been asked to stay confined to their home. Those who had close contact with Duncan in the days leading up to his diagnosis will be observed for 21 days. If no symptoms present during the monitoring period, these individuals will be in the clear.
"Contact tracing is intensive. We have a seven-person team in Dallas working with the local health department and the hospital, and we will be identifying everyone who may have come in contact with him and then monitoring them for 21 days," CDC Director Tom Frieden said.
Frieden said Wednesday that discovering and diagnosing additional Ebola cases in the U.S. was "not impossible."
Though Duncan, who traveled from Liberia to the U.S. in mid-September, likely had contact with many more people on his trip across the Atlantic, he didn't begin presenting symptoms until several days after he arrived in Texas.
Duncan's flights took him through Brussels and Washington's Dulles International Airport, but the CDC insists that Duncan was not yet contagious at that time.
Duncan first sought treatment for his Ebola symptoms, including a high fever, on September 26, but was sent home with antibiotics without raising any red flags. On that initial trip to the hospital, Duncan reportedly told staff he recently traveled from Liberia, but no extra precautions were taken. Duncan returned to the hospital two days later with worsened symptoms.
Liberia has played host to the majority of the latest Ebola outbreak in West African, the deadliest ever. Nearly 60 percent of the virus's fatalities have happened in the nation sandwiched between Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast.
