An unidentified man from inside the apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola patient diagnosed in the USA, was staying retrieves items left by the Red Cross in Dallas, Texas, USA, 03 October 2014. This is the first case of Ebola virus disease confirmed in the United States.(Photo: LARRY W. SMITH EPA)
Texas health authorities overseeing an Ebola investigation have narrowed the list of people they're following down to 50, after earlier interviewing 100 contacts of a man infected with the deadly virus.
Health workers will contact each of those 50 people daily.
Only about 10 are considered to be at higher risk for Ebola, either because they had very close contact with the patient or because they handled his blood in the hospital, said David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.
So far, none of those contacts is sick, he said.
"All those individuals are doing well," Lakey said at a press conference Friday. While it's unlikely that all 50 of those people have been infected with Ebola, Lakey said health officials are "casting a broad net" and are "doing everything we can to make sure we don't miss anyone."
Doctors have a "low level of concern about most of the people we're following," said Beth Bell, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
The CDC has sent 10 of its disease specialists to Dallas to help with the investigation.
Hospital or emergency workers who had a higher-risk exposure have been asked not to to travel. They will be furloughed with pay for 21 days, said Clay Lewis Jenkins, a judge in Dallas County, Texas leading the emergency response there.
No other patients were exposed while the Ebola patient, a Liberian man named Thomas Eric Duncan, was at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. Duncan is said to be in serious but stable condition and is in isolated.
Ten of Duncan's higher-risk contacts will have their temperatures taken twice a day during the 21-day observation period, to make sure they don't have a fever or other early symptoms of Ebola. It can take up to 21 days after being infected with Ebola to develop symptoms.
These contacts will be asked to take their own temperature once a day, and will also be visited once a day by public health workers, who will take their temperatures a second time, Jenkins said. Anyone who develops a fever will be tested for Ebola and isolated.
The 40 lower-risk contacts have no travel or work restrictions, Jenkins said.
Dallas officials quarantined Duncan's relatives to make sure that health workers are able to take their temperatures. Jenkins said he has been frustrated that it took until Friday to find a cleaning crew to visit their apartment and remove sheets from Duncan's bed. The sheets had been bagged and stowed in a bedroom, with the door closed, but the sheets had not washed. Jenkins said he would like to move the family to a new apartment that has its own washer and dryer.
"I want to see this family treated as I would want to see my own family treated if I were incapitated," Jenkins said.
A cleaning crew certified in handling hazardous materials is removing Duncan's bedclothes, and will store them in a secure location in Dallas County away from areas where people live, Jenkins said. He said he has not yet gotten the necessary permits to remove the bedclothes from the county.
Officials have been bringing the family food, and Jenkins said he visited them himself last night.
There are no approved treatments or vaccines for Ebola, although two vaccines are currently being tested, and two experimental therapies have shown great promise.
Although 70% of Ebola patients in West Africa have died of their infections, the three previous patients treated in American hospitals all have survived. Doctors can't say if these three patients -- who had all worked in a Liberian hospital with or near Ebola patients -- were cured because of experimental treatments or because of good supportive care, which includes maintaining their blood pressure and hydration.
The World Health Organization said that 7,470 people in Guinea, Liberia or Sierran Leone have been infected with Ebola and 3,431 deaths have been reported.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not revealed whether Duncan will receive an experimental therapy or whether he has even asked for it.
Bell said it's possible that additional patients will be diagnosed with Ebola, either because they had close contact with Duncan or because they have flown here from West Africa.
"The best way to protect Americans and the rest of the world is to stop the Ebola outbreak in West Africa," Bell said.
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