Ebola Death Doesn't Change Risk for Others
Thomas Eric Duncan died on Wednesday
at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, a sobering death after three
other patients were cured. Their doctors said they hoped quick treatment
and good supportive care helped them recover.
Duncan’s death raises questions about that, but it doesn’t change the risk for the 10 people who were in close contact
with him while he was sick, and the nearly 50 others who may have had
some sort of contact. They’re being monitored for 21 days, taking their
temperatures twice a day and being closely questioned by health workers,
to make sure they don’t get sick.
"The doctors, nurses and
staff at Presbyterian provided excellent and compassionate care, but
Ebola is a disease that attacks the body in many ways," Dr. David Lakey,
commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in a
statement. "We'll continue every effort to contain the spread of the
virus and protect people from this threat."
Although Duncan died, it doesn’t mean he was somehow more infectious
before he died, however, and it doesn’t mean that people who were not
considered at high risk before are at any higher risk now. The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention and doctors who have treated Ebola
patients for decades say patients are not infectious at all before they
develop symptoms that include fever, vomiting and diarrhea.
"We'll continue every effort to contain the spread of the virus and protect people from this threat."
No one who flew on a plane
with Duncan is at risk, because he wasn’t sick when he flew. Those at
highest risk are the health care workers who treated him when he came
into the hospital, and family members who were with him in the days
after he became ill and before he entered the hospital.
The death also doesn’t change the equation for two other Americans fighting Ebola — NBC freelance camera operator Ashoka Mukpo, being treated at the University of Nebraska medical center, and an unnamed U.S. physician being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
CDC officials say it’s
entirely possible more people with Ebola will come into the U.S. in the
coming weeks and months. It takes an average of 8 to 10 days to get sick
after exposure to the virus, so people can travel feeling perfectly
healthy and become ill after arrival.
And CDC and the World
Health Organization say all countries can expect more patients so long
as Ebola continues to spread in West Africa. WHO said Wednesday that
8,033 have been diagnosed with Ebola and 3,879 have died — and says this
is almost certainly an underestimate.
“Trained CBP staff will
observe them for signs of illness, ask them a series of health and
exposure questions and provide health information for Ebola and
reminders to monitor themselves for symptoms. Trained medical staff will
take their temperature with a non-contact thermometer,” CDC said in a
statement.
But CDC says it’s far more effective to screen people before they leave affected countries.
“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 as ill with malaria, a disease common in West
Africa, transmitted by mosquitoes and not contagious from one person to
another,” CDC said.
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