Texas Ebola patient denied he had contact with virus, Liberian official says
Verne Strickland USA DOT COM October 2, 2014
By Gary Tuchman, Jacque Wilson and Holly Yan, CNN
updated 3:53 PM EDT, Thu October 2, 2014
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Health officials are reaching out to as many as 100 people
- The patient came into contact with up to 20 people, the Dallas mayor says
- Five of them are children who attend four different schools; some parents are worried
- Official: Hospital "dropped the ball"; Hospital: Initial symptoms didn't warrant admission
Dallas (CNN) -- [Breaking news update at 3:52 p.m. ET Thursday]
Ebola patient Thomas Eric
Duncan answered "no" to questions about whether he had cared for an
Ebola patient or touched the body of someone who had died in an area
affected by Ebola, Binyah Kesselly, board chairman of the Liberia
Airport Authority, told CNN. Duncan is hospitalized in Dallas, Texas.
A contractor will arrive
"as soon as possible" to deal with "hygiene issues" at the Dallas
apartment where a family is quarantined after Duncan stayed there,
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins told reporters Thursday. So far, no one
who had contact with Duncan has shown any indication of having
contracted Ebola, Jenkins said.
Sheets inside the
apartment that were used by Duncan "were placed in a sealed plastic
bag," along with the man's belongings, Jenkins said. Contractors hired
to clean the apartment will "appropriately dispose of those items," he
said.
Custodians are stepping
up cleanup work at Dallas schools attended by the five students who may
have been in contact with Duncan. "We don't think there's any virus at
any of those buildings, but we'll take that off the table, so we're
doing extra cleaning and disinfecting," said Mike Miles, superintendent
of the Dallas Independent School District. Attendance at those schools
Thursday was down to about 86%, Miles said.
Dallas mayor: Safety is first priority
Ebola patient's contacts being monitored
Officials are dividing
into two teams to narrow a list of people who may have had contact with
the Texas Ebola patient, CDC spokesman David Daigle told reporters
Thursday. "We're making great progress on that," Daigle said. "I think
you've heard already that there's a list of about 100 what we call
potential or possible contacts. And that will be culled down to a list
that we will begin contact tracing on."
[Original story, posted at 3 p.m. ET Thursday]
Did U.S. Ebola patient lie on airport questionnaire?
(CNN) -- If it's
determined that U.S. Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan lied on his health
screening questionnaire before leaving West Africa, the Liberia Airport
Authority "will seek to prosecute," board chairman Binyah Kesselly told
CNN on Thursday.
The health questionnaire
typically contains questions about the passenger's recent contact with
Ebola patients. Passengers also are asked whether they've experienced
any symptoms consistent with Ebola, such as vomiting, diarrhea or joint
pain, in the past couple of days.
Duncan was helping Ebola
patients during his stay in Liberia, witnesses say. Liberian community
leader Tugbeh Chieh Tugbeh said Duncan was caring for an Ebola-infected
patient at a residence in Paynesville City, just outside of Monrovia.
Duncan was screened three times before he boarded his flight in Liberia to Brussels, Kesselly said.
"The first screening was
at the gate, before you get to the parking lot. The second time is
before you enter the terminal building and the third is before you board
the flight. At every point your temperature is scanned."
His temperature at those
checkpoints was a consistent 97.3 degrees Fahrenheit, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention chief Thomas Frieden told reporters
Thursday. "Basically, he didn't have a fever," Frieden said, noting that
the Ebola patient's temperature was taken by a trained CDC health care
worker with a thermometer approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Kesselly said airport
authority would seek to prosecute Duncan "if it is determined that he
made a false declaration during the health screening questionnaire."
"We cannot make the
(Ebola) risk zero until the outbreak is controlled in West Africa," said
Frieden. He went on to say that isolating West African countries
completely through travel restrictions would make it more difficult to
assist in controlling the outbreak, and would eventually put the United
States at greater risk.
Medical waste team sent to patient's home
Woman, kids shared home with Ebola patient
Ebola preps difficult for hospitals
Duncan is in serious condition at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Wilfred Smallwood, who
says he's a half-brother of Duncan, said Thursday that he doesn't
believe Duncan knew he had Ebola when he left Liberia for the United
States. "(It's) what we do in Liberia -- our tradition is to help
somebody who needs help," he said when asked about Duncan's contact with
Ebola patients.
Smallwood said that when
Duncan first visited Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, neither Duncan
nor the hospital knew then that he had Ebola.
This was Duncan's first
time in the United States, Smallwood said. Smallwood left Liberia nine
years ago to move to the United States, where many relatives live.
Duncan, a resident of Liberia, was visiting his son and his son's mother
in Dallas, Smallwood said.
The partner of Duncan
has been quarantined in her Dallas apartment where Duncan became sick
with the virus, the woman told CNN's Anderson Cooper. The woman, who
asked to be identified only by her first name, Louise, is quarantined
with one of her children who is younger than 13 and two nephews in their
20s. The four of them were in the apartment when Duncan became ill,
Cooper said.
Louise and her family
are in isolation with sheets and towels used by the Ebola-stricken
Duncan, Cooper said. Louise did use bleach to clean her apartment, "but
it's not clear to me how systematic the cleaning was," he said.
Dr. David Lakey,
commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said the
home's conditions "need to be improved." There has been "hesitancy" on
the part of companies in Texas that would be able to clean the woman's
apartment, he said, but the department has identified an "entity" that
is on its way to help.
There is a law
enforcement officer stationed at the apartment to ensure the four people
inside do not come into contact with anyone else, Lakey said. Food is
being delivered to the family.
Up to 100 people being contacted
Health officials are
reaching out to as many as 100 people who may have had contact with
Duncan, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of State Health Services
said Thursday. These are people who are still being questioned because
they may have crossed paths with the patient either at the hospital, at
his apartment complex or in the community.
Tracking the travel of Ebola patient
Ebola patient released by mistake
Photos: Ebola outbreak in West Africa
"Out of an abundance of
caution, we're starting with this very wide net, including people who
have had even brief encounters with the patient or the patient's home,"
spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. "The number will drop as we focus in
on those whose contact may represent a potential risk of infection."
The number of direct
contacts who have been identified and are being monitored right now is
"more than 12," a federal official told CNN on Thursday.
"By the end of the day, we should have a pretty good idea of how many contacts there are," the official said.
Being "monitored" means a
public health worker visits twice a day to take the contact's
temperature and ask them if they are experiencing any symptoms.
None of the people being
monitored has so far shown symptoms. Most are not being quarantined,
though Dallas County health officials have ordered four close relatives
of the patient to stay home and not have any visitors until at least
October 19.
"The family was having
some challenges following the directions to stay home, so we're taking
every precaution," Texas Department of Health spokeswoman Carrie
Williams said about why the state had issued a legal order.
Two things are still
spreading in Dallas: fear and frustration. Some parents are scared to
take their kids to the schools that his girlfriend's children attended.
Others are upset at the
hospital where Duncan first sought care, which sent him home and raised
the possibility he could infect others for at least two additional days.
'I just got scared'
Among the people Duncan encountered were his girlfriend's five children, Liberian community leader Stanley Gaye said.
Dallas Independent
School District Superintendent Mike Miles said the patient came in
contact with five students who attended four different schools in the
area.
Sam Tasby Middle School is one of those schools.
"I just got scared
because I thought that that kid came to that school and probably got
contact with him," said Nellie Catalan, whose child attends the middle
school.
Lethal virus hit U.S. years ago
Perry: Ebola patient had contact with kids
"I know it doesn't get (spread) by the air, but you never know."
More than 3,500 students attend the four schools, which are getting cleaned and sanitized over the next few days.
But student Denise Trujillo said she's still worried.
"I don't feel like going to school tomorrow," she said.
While the five students who were near Duncan are staying home and being monitored, their schools will remain open.
The investigation is
ongoing, but health officials don't believe there is a workplace or
community organization that Duncan visited where anyone was exposed,
Frieden said Thursday.
'It gets bad -- fast'
Because the early
symptoms of Ebola can include abdominal pain, fever and vomiting --
ailments that also come with other illnesses -- there are concerns about
how to distinguish between Ebola and, say, the flu.
But the answer is fairly simple.
"
Ebola tends to progress much more quickly," said Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent. "It gets bad -- fast."
And once it gets bad, Ebola can bring on a host of ghastly symptoms, including diarrhea and unexplained bruising and bleeding.
But Ebola is much harder
to contract than the flu. The virus can be spread only through the
bodily fluids of people who have active symptoms of the illness.
'They dropped the ball'
On September 24, four
days after he arrived in Dallas from Liberia, Duncan started feeling
symptoms. That day is significant because that's when he started being
contagious.
Late the following
night, he went to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas with a
low-grade fever and abdominal pain, the hospital said.
Duncan told a nurse he had been in Africa.
But "regretfully, that
information was not fully communicated throughout the full team," said
Dr. Mark Lester, executive vice president of Texas Health Resources.
Duncan was sent home
with painkillers and antibiotics, only to return in worse condition on
September 28. That's when he was isolated.
"It was a mistake. They
dropped the ball," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the miscommunication at the
hospital.
"You don't want to pile
on them, but hopefully this will never happen again. ... The CDC has
been vigorously emphasizing the need for a travel history."
Gupta said this mishap doesn't make sense.
"A nurse did ask the
question, and he did respond that he was in Liberia, and that wasn't
transmitted to people who were in charge of his care," he said. "There's
no excuse for this."
And one of Duncan's
friends said he was the one who contacted the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention with concerns that the hospital wasn't moving
quickly enough after Duncan's second hospital visit.
But the hospital said the patient's condition "did not warrant admission" last week.
Searching for others
Duncan's contacts will be monitored for 21 days -- the longest amount of time it takes for Ebola symptoms to show up.
If any of Duncan's contacts show symptoms, they will be isolated.
So far, so good.
The paramedics who transported Duncan to the hospital haven't shown symptoms, said Rawlings, the Dallas mayor.
Neither have his girlfriend's children.
"They are doing well. ... They are doing fine," said Gaye, the Liberian community leader. "All she asks for are our prayers."
But if one of those
contacts ends up having Ebola, the tedious processes of tracking and
monitoring a web of contacts would have to start all over again.
CNN's Gary Tuchman reported from Dallas;
CNN's Holly Yan reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Elwyn Lopez,
Caleb Hellerman, Devon Sayers, Jennifer Bixler, Catherine E. Shoichet,
Ashley Fantz, Jake Tapper, John Branch, Jason Morris and Greg Botelho
contributed to this report.
Kathy Harbin Scruggs This
is one time I pray you are wrong, my friend. It is very troublesome....
They are trying not to cause panic, and being lax in the process 
John Ostapkovich