Ebola confirmed in the US; epidemiologists en route to Texas

By Caribbean Medical News Staff
The first case of the deadly Ebola virus diagnosed on US soil has been confirmed by medical officials in Dallas, Texas. At press time, the Caribbean Medical News was awaiting a press conference from the Centres for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC has a team of epidemiologists en route to Texas and all and any contacts will be monitored for the incubation period of 21 days.
According to reports, the individual became ill a few days after arriving in Texas on September 20th after leaving Liberia on 19th September. The CDC confirmed the case. The CDC says that it does not appear that the individual was a health care worker but had travelled to the area and back to the US.
The CDC said they will nonetheless contact all those who have been in contact with patient for 21 days, the incubation period of the disease and to ensure that if infected, they are isolated. The patient is in the ICU.
Dr. Thomas Friedman, Director, CDC has said that it is entirely possible that someone could be infected if the Texas patient was ill and someone had been in contact with patient. Friedman also suggested that the “tried and true public interventions” will be used and that the patient became ill on the 24th September 2014 and sought care on the 26th September and ended up in isolation on the 28th isolation. Apparently, the patient returned to the US on a commercial flight but Friedman reiterated that the public should not be concerned. Additionally, he said the gentleman did go to the hospital but was sent back home only to return. Friedman said that Ebola’s first symptoms may not always present like Ebola.
Contacts will be monitored for three weeks
The patient is said to be a man believed to have been infected in Liberia prior to displaying symptoms of the illness in Texas. After feeling ill for a few days, he went to a local (Texas) hospital where he was placed in isolation.
The WHO reports that there have been upwards of 6 000 infected and 3 000 deaths including some health personnel. The US President also stated that he would send 3 000 troops to shore up the systems in Liberia and Sierra Leone along with public education kits and personal care kits including sanitizer and other items.
Some US medical workers infected in West Africa have recovered after being flown back to the US for treatment with the experimental drug ZMapp while a UK nurse was flown back to the UK and a French nurse flown back to Paris for treatment.
Officials with the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas said an unnamed patient was being tested for the virus and had been placed in isolation on September 28th, some four days since his arrival in the US.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says more than 3,000 people have died of the virus so far, mostly in Liberia where the health care system is said to have “broken down”.
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, there have been 19 confirmed cases of the virus and eight deaths since the first confirmed case there in July. It would appear that Nigeria and Senegal have been able to contain the deadly virus.
There has been one confirmed case in Senegal and there are no deaths reported.
The WHO has said the disease is “an international emergency”.