The US response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is rapidly evolving as the Dallas patient Thomas Eric Duncan a Liberian national and, the first person diagnosed with the disease on U.S. soil, died this morning. Because Duncan was initially sent home from the hospital when he had early signs of the disease, others may have been exposed to the deadly virus. He was diagnosed a week ago and was treated in isolation. Duncan’s family members are under quarantine and thus far have shown no signs of the disease. Health officials in Dallas are monitoring about 48 people for potential exposure.
Worldwide, nearly 4,000 have died after contracting Ebola.
Symptoms of Ebola include fever, severe headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising. Symptoms can appear up to 21 days following exposure to the virus.
Ebola spreads by direct contact with the body fluids of someone who is sick with the virus or died from it.
In the coming days, five U.S. airports will begin enhanced Ebola screening and tracking measures for all people entering the U.S. from the Ebola-affected nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The airports include New York’s JFK International, Washington-Dulles, Newark, Chicago-O’Hare and Atlanta International.
“We work to continuously increase the safety of Americans,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “We believe these new measures will further protect the health of Americans, understanding that nothing we can do will get us to absolute zero risk until we end the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.”
In addition, exit screening measures have been implemented in the affected West African countries, and CDC experts have worked closely with local authorities in those nations to implement the measures. Currently, all outbound passengers are screened for Ebola symptoms in the affected countries. Primary exit screening involves travelers responding to a travel health questionnaire, being visually assessed for potential illness, and having their body temperature measured. In the last two months since exit screening began in the three countries, of 36,000 people screened, 77 people were denied boarding a flight because of the health screening process. None of the 77 passengers were infected with Ebola and many were diagnosed with malaria, a disease common in West Africa, transmitted by mosquitoes and not contagious from one person to another.
In a briefing yesterday, Friedan, reminded reporters the global fight against the Ebola virus will be long and hard, and the enemy is the virus and not people and nationalities.
“It’s a virus that doesn’t spread through the air, and that we do know how to control,” Freidman said. “We do know how to stop it; by isolated patients, doing contact tracing, and breaking the chains of transmission.”
Homeland Security’s Customs & Border Protection will continue to observe all travelers entering the U.S. for overt signs of illness at all ports of entry, said Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
“CBP, working closely with CDC, will continue to assess the risk of the spread of Ebola into the United States, and take additional measures, as necessary, to protect the American people,”Mayorkas said.
Yesterday, a patient who was flown back to the U.S. from Sierra Leone following a high-risk exposure to the virus through a needle stick injury has been discharged from the hospital to his home. The patient was admitted for observation to the NIH Clinical Center on September 28. Following CDC guidelines, the patient will remain in his home, check his temperature twice a day, until the completion of a 21-day observation period from the time of reported exposure.
