Ebola news 10/4

[Buster's Uncle]

Ugandan doctor hospitalised for Ebola in Germany
AFP
October 3, 2014 9:53 AM



Berlin (AFP) - A Ugandan doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone was hospitalised on Friday in Frankfurt, becoming the second victim of the deadly virus to be treated in Germany.

"The patient is an employee of an Italian NGO, he has Ugandan nationality and has worked as a doctor in Sierra Leone," said Stefan Gruettner, social affairs minister for the Hesse region where Frankfurt is located.

"He worked over there with people affected by the Ebola virus and was infected," he told Hessische Rundfunk radio station.

The man's health is "very serious but stable", said Timo Wolf, head of the infectious disease centre at Frankfurt University Hospital.

The next three days will be decisive, he added, saying the treatment would last "two to three weeks".

The patient arrived on a special flight on Thursday night under tight health precautions and will be placed in an isolation unit at the hospital.

"The patient will be treated in a separate building," the hospital said in a statement, adding that it would not provide information on the evolving state of his health.

Another victim of the virus -- a Senegalese expert with the World Health Organization, also infected in Sierra Leone -- has been hospitalised in the northern port of Hamburg since the end of August. No information on his current state has been released.

Ebola has so far killed 3,338 people out of 7,178 infected, most of them in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to the latest figures from WHO.

There is currently no vaccine or treatment for the virus which is spread by contact and the exchange of bodily fluids.


http://news.yahoo.com/ugandan-doctor-hospitalised-ebola-germany-135339474.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola strikes fourth American in Liberia
AFP
By Zoom Dosso  19 hours ago



Health workers put on their protective clothing at a training center for the Ebola virus at a World Health Organization health center in the Liberian capital Monrovia, on October 3, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)



Monrovia (AFP) - A US television network prepared to evacuate a cameraman who contracted Ebola in Liberia, as the UN's pointman flew to Sierra Leone, calling the epidemic the world's "highest priority".

Ashoka Mukpo, 33, who was working as a freelancer for NBC news, discovered he was running a fever on Wednesday, his network said, and is in quarantine in a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) treatment centre.

Hired by NBC only three days ago, he is the fourth American to contract Ebola in Liberia.

"The doctors are optimistic about his prognosis," Mukpo's father Mitchell Levy said in a message to family and friends quoted by NBC, adding that his son had worked on humanitarian projects in Liberia for several years.

By far the most deadly epidemic of Ebola on record has spread into five west African countries since the start of the year, infecting more than 7,000 people and killing about half of them.

The virus, spread through infected bodily fluids, can only be transmitted when a patient is experiencing the symptoms -- severe fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in some cases, massive internal haemorrhaging and external bleeding.



A worker guards the entrance of a Doctors Without Borders Ebola treatment centre in Monrovia on October 3, 2014, where NBC cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who has been infected with the Ebola virus, is being treated (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)


The alarming rate at which the contagion is spreading has triggered international action to help battle the outbreak.

On Friday, the US military announced that it now expects to ramp up the number of troops deployed to Liberia to help fight the outbreak to nearly 4,000, up from a planned 3,000-strong force.

Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), travelled to Sierra Leone on Friday for the second leg of a tour of the three hardest-hit nations.

"The only way we will end this crisis is if we end every single last case of Ebola so there is no more risk of transmission to anyone, and when that's accomplished, UNMEER will go home," he told journalists on Thursday in the Liberian capital Freetown.

The UN envoy said he was intent on contributing to "the highest priority for the international community -- for the whole world, not just the United Nations".



Hospital staff build new units to treat Ebola on October 1, 2014 in Monrovia (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)


The World Health Organization said in its latest situation update there was still a "significant shortfall" in capacity in west Africa, with 1,500 more beds needed in Liberia and 450 in Sierra Leone.

Around 160 health professionals pledged by Cuba to Sierra Leone arrived Thursday, reported an AFP correspondent at the airport near Freetown.

Britain has pledged £120 million ($190 million, 150 million euros) to help build an estimated 700 treatment beds, fund new community treatment centres, support existing public health services and support aid agencies in Sierra Leone.


- 'Unpardonable' traveler -

US health officials meanwhile sought to allay fears of an outbreak in the United States as 50 people in Texas were being monitored for contagion after potentially having contact with a Liberian diagnosed with Ebola.



US President Barack Obama takes part in a briefing on the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on September 16, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia (AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan)


Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the US health care system "would make it extraordinarily unlikely that we would have an outbreak".

Thomas Eric Duncan this week became the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola on US soil.

He had flown from Liberia -- where he reportedly came into contact with a known Ebola patient -- and arrived in Texas on September 20 to visit family.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Friday Duncan had behaved irresponsibly by travelling despite knowing he was potentially infected.

"The fact that he knew and he left the country is unpardonable," Sirleaf told Canada's public broadcaster CBC.



A pile of used protective clothing are seen on the floor at a World Health Organization health center for Ebola victims in the Liberian capital Monrovia, on October 3, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)


Meanwhile, NBC News president Deborah Turness said the crew working with Mupko in Liberia were being closely monitored but were showing no symptoms.

"However, in an abundance of caution, we will fly them back on a private charter flight and then they will place themselves under quarantine in the United States for 21 days -- which is at the most conservative end of the spectrum of medical guidance," she added.

The cameraman is thought to be the first Western journalist to contract Ebola covering the west African outbreak, although several have died in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Germany said on Friday a Ugandan doctor who had infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone while working for an Italian non-governmental organisation had been hospitalised in Frankfurt, the second Ebola patient to be treated in the country.


- 'Five infected every hour' -

Save the Children warned that five people are catching Ebola every hour in Sierra Leone and demand for treatment beds is far outstripping supply.

If the current "terrifying" rate of infection continues, 10 people will be infected every hour with the virus in Sierra Leone by the end of October, the London-based charity warned.

The extent of fear which the epidemic is engendering in the country was underlined on Friday when it emerged a middle-aged man in the quarantined city of Makeni had died after setting himself alight, fearing his family had infected him with Ebola.

Neighbours said the man became depressed after his wife and daughter were taken for Ebola tests at a holding centre.

"The man was heard saying he'd rather die than hear any news of his family being suspected of Ebola," one told AFP.

"He doused himself with petrol and then struck a match to be engulfed in fire."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-strikes-fourth-american-liberia-021034456.html

[Buster's Uncle]

First French Ebola patient leaves hospital
Reuters
6 hours ago



PARIS (Reuters) - A volunteer nurse who was the first French national to contract Ebola has left hospital after being successfully treated for the disease, France's health ministry said on Saturday.

The volunteer caught the disease while working for charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in Liberia and was evacuated to France last month.

The woman was admitted to a military hospital just outside Paris and received an experimental treatment after the authorities approved the use of drugs currently under development to treat Ebola.

"She received several experimental treatments successively," Health Minister Marisol Touraine told France Info radio, declining to disclose which drugs were used.

"When you have several treatments being used, it is difficult to know if it is one of them that worked or the combination of them," she added.

Drug companies and governments have been trying to find effective treatments and a potential vaccine in response to the worst outbreak on record of Ebola, which has killed more than 3,400 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, according to the World Health Organisation.

The French health ministry has authorised the use of four experimental drugs for treating Ebola: Favipiravir, TKM-100-802, ZMapp and ZMabs.

Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp. said in a statement last month that its Avigan treatment, which contains Favipiravir, had been administered to the French Ebola patient.

A British volunteer nurse who also contracted Ebola in West Africa was discharged from hospital last month after being given ZMapp.

In the German city of Hamburg, health officials said on Saturday that an employee of the World Health Organisation (WHO) who was being treated for Ebola in hospital had been released.

The Senegalese epidemiologist, who was flown to Hamburg in late August after contracting the disease in Sierra Leone, left on Friday after being successfully treated.

Also on Friday a Ugandan doctor infected with Ebola arrived in Frankfurt from Sierra Leone for treatment.

The United States is facing its first Ebola case after a man who travelled recently from Liberia to Texas was diagnosed with the disease earlier this week.

(Reporting by Gus Trompiz; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Stephen Powell)


http://news.yahoo.com/first-french-ebola-patient-leaves-hospital-144706059--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Texas tracks 50 exposed to Ebola, 10 'high risk'
AFP
By Linda Jones  21 hours ago



A view of the house in the Liberian capital Monrovia, on October 3, 2014, where Thomas Eric Duncan, infected with the Ebola virus, was living prior to traveling to the USA (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)



Dallas (AFP) - Texas health officials were monitoring 50 people for Ebola exposure Friday, 10 of whom are at high risk of the disease after close contact with the first diagnosed US patient.

Meanwhile, leading US health authorities sought to reassure the public that an outbreak of Ebola in the United States was unlikely due to the nation's modern healthcare system.

The 50 were narrowed down from an initial pool of 100 people thought to have come into contact with the sick man.

For the next three weeks they will be checked for fever twice daily, and are currently "doing well," said David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

"Most of these individuals are low risk. There are about 10 individuals that are at high risk, so we are watching those individuals very carefully."

The people are health care workers and those who came in close contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, who traveled from Liberia to Texas in late September and was announced Tuesday as the first diagnosed US case of Ebola.

Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a White House news conference that the US health care system "would make it extraordinarily unlikely that we would have an outbreak."



US President Barack Obama takes part in a briefing on the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on September 16, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia (AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan)


He acknowledged "missteps" in the way Dallas handled the situation at first, with the hospital admitting a flaw in electronic health records left doctors unaware of the patient's travel history to Africa.

Duncan was sent home after initially seeking treatment, and was in the community, showing symptoms and therefore contagious, for four days before he was isolated.

"There were things that did not go the way they should have in Dallas, but there were a lot of things that went right and are going right," Fauci said.

"Contract tracing is now going on, and that is the important thing."


- Closely monitored -

Duncan's girlfriend and three members of her family have meanwhile been ordered to stay inside in a Dallas apartment under police guard.



A Health worker uses a piece of cardboard to carry a thermometer as he looks after a patient at a World Health Organization health center in the Liberian capital Monrovia, on October 3, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)


A hazardous materials team arrived Friday to remove the sheets and towels Duncan used while he was sick, according to pictures posted online by the Dallas City Hall.

A cleanup team was turned away on Thursday over problems with permits for dangerous waste.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials continue to monitor the health of the four people in the apartment, but Duncan's girlfriend, Louise, has complained of the quarantine.

"They did not bring food yet," Louise told CNN.

"I'm just hanging in there, depending on God to save our lives."

Louise said she cleaned the apartment with bleach after Duncan's Ebola diagnosis and, when asked if she came into contact with Duncan's fluids, she said she did not think she had.

The family has been ordered to stay in the apartment until October 19, the end of the virus's incubation period.


- Potential new case -

Meanwhile, concerns mounted elsewhere in the United States about the potential spread of Ebola, which has already killed 3,338 people in West Africa.

A patient with Ebola-like symptoms -- which can include fever, vomiting and diarrhea -- who recently traveled to Nigeria was hospitalized at Howard University in Washington.

"In an abundance of caution, we have activated the appropriate infection control protocols, including isolating the patient," hospital spokeswoman Kerry-Ann Hamilton told AFP.

A 33-year-old American cameraman for NBC News was diagnosed with Ebola in Liberia on Thursday and was said to be returning to the United States for treatment.

The State Department has helped facilitate the return home of a total of five Americans from West Africa for Ebola treatment, and a sixth with a high risk for Ebola exposure since the outbreak began earlier this year, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

She said the five include the freelance cameraman, Ashoka Mukpo. He is scheduled to arrive in Omaha, Nebraska Monday morning.


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-tracks-50-exposed-ebola-10-high-risk-205615692.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. CDC: Many inquiries about possible Ebola cases, no new infections
Reuters
5 hours ago



Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, speaks at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia September 30, 2014. REUTERS/Tami Chappell



(Reuters) - U.S. health officials have fielded inquiries about as many as 100 potential cases of Ebola since the first patient with the deadly virus was detected in the country, but no new infections have been identified, a senior health official said on Saturday.

Dr Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said news of the Ebola patient in Dallas has raised the awareness of hospitals nationwide to check incoming patients for potential risks, particularly those who have recently traveled from the epicenter of the outbreak in West Africa.

CDC has identified nine people who have had contact with the Dallas patient and therefore may have been exposed to the virus, an additional 40 are being monitored as potential contacts. None have shown symptoms.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg; Editing by Frank McGurty)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-cdc-many-inquiries-possible-ebola-cases-no-163755324--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. officials acknowledge ‘missteps’ in Dallas but defend Ebola response
There will be no outbreak in the United States, they say in White House briefing
Olivier Knox
By Olivier Knox  23 hours ago



Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, joined by Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell, right, and Commander of the United States Africa Command Gen. David M. Rodriguez, left, speaks in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 3, 2014, about the U.S. government's response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)



Top government officials steering the nation’s response to the catastrophic spread of Ebola in western Africa admitted Friday that health officials made “missteps” in responding to a case of the deadly disease in Dallas.

But the officials, holding what was clearly meant to be a reassuring briefing at the White House, promised that there would be no “outbreak” in the United States.

The health care systems in afflicted African countries are "inadequate and incapable of actually handling the kind of identification, isolation, rapid treatment, [and] protection of the people who come into contact [with infected people] and contact tracing,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told reporters.

“We have a case now, and it is entirely conceivable there may be another case. But the reason that we feel confident is that our structure, our ability to do those things would preclude an outbreak,” he added.

The officials laid out measures meant to keep infected travelers from boarding airplanes bound for the United States. Those screenings – like testing would-be passengers for fever and other symptoms – have kept “dozens and dozens” of people from leaving affected countries, said White House Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco.

Monaco also rejected growing calls, including from some in Congress, to impose a travel ban on people from the region.

“We believe those types of steps actually impede the response. They impede and slow down the ability of the United States and other international partners to actually get expertise and capabilities and equipment into the affected areas,” she said. “The most important and effective thing we can do is to control the epidemic at its source.”

The officials insisted that the known case in Dallas, where health care providers initially turned away a man with Ebola who then potentially exposed more people to the disease, was an exception.

“This outbreak began in March of this year,” Monaco underlined. “And since that time and since the screening measures that we’ve discussed from this podium began over the summer, there have been tens of thousands of individuals who have come to this country from the affected region. And we have now seen one case.”

Sylvia Burwell, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), expressed “confidence” in the system of tests and alerts devised by the government.

“These processes work,” she said. But “we are going learn every time at every step.”

Still, Fauci admitted “there were things that did not go the way they should have in Dallas.”

“Certainly it was rocky,” Fauci said. “There were missteps there, there were good things that happened also” after the initial error.

The other officials at the briefing were Raj Shah, administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and General David M. Rodriguez, commander, United States Africa Command (AFRICOM).

The briefing came as the Pentagon announced that 1,800 more troops would head to West Africa to help with the response effort, which could eventually require 4,000 Defense Department personnel.


http://news.yahoo.com/u-s--officials-acknowledge--missteps--in-dallas--but-defend-ebola-response-221839613.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Dallas hospital retracts explanation for missed Ebola diagnosis
Patient remains in isolation, condition downgraded to critical
Yahoo
By Jason Sickles, 5 hours ago



Texas Health Presbyterian has not addressed how it overlooked Thomas Eric Duncan as likely having Ebola. (REUTERS/Mike Stone)



DALLAS – The Texas hospital that failed to initially identify and isolate the country’s first Ebola patient in its emergency room is now backtracking on its explanation for the error.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas first said they had “thoroughly reviewed the chain of events” and blamed a flawed computer system for its staff not recognizing that Liberian native Thomas Duncan was at high-risk for having the deadly disease.



U.S. Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan. (AP Photo/Wilmot Chayee)


Late Friday – 24 hours after releasing the details in “in the interest of transparency” – the hospital reversed part of its account. Unlike before, they said Duncan’s travel history was visible to all in the hospital’s electronic health record (EHR) system.

“There was no flaw in the EHR in the way the physician and nursing portions interacted related to this event,” the hospital said in a written statement.

But as of Saturday afternoon, no other explanation for the oversight has been given. Emails to the hospital with specific questions from Yahoo News have not been returned for days.

The orginal statement detailed how the hospital had been proactive in fixing the alleged flaw.

“Texas Health Dallas has relocated the travel history documentation to a portion of the EHR that is part of both workflows,” the hospital stated on Thursday. “It also has been modified to specifically reference Ebola-endemic regions in Africa. We have made this change to increase the visibility and documentation of the travel question in order to alert all providers. We feel that this change will improve the early identification of patients who may be at risk for communicable diseases, including Ebola.”

Duncan's condition was downgraded on Saturday afternoon from serious to critical.

Officials in charge of the Dallas investigation and public health response also had no answers when asked about the hospital’s retraction during a Saturday news conference.

“There are a lot of issues that have come forward with the first case in the U.S.,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, CDC director. “It’s definitely possible to take care of patients with Ebola safely, but it’s not easy and there are lots of issues.”



Hospital's original statement faulted its computer system. Click image to read entire document.


Federal guidelines published in August advised someone in Duncan’s condition and who was known to be in diseased-ravaged West Africa to be placed in isolation and tested. Instead, Duncan was prescribed antibiotics and sent home. The decision may have put others at risk for exposure to Ebola before an ambulance rushed Duncan back to the ER two days later when his condition worsened.

Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Service, pleaded for the country’s medical professionals to learn from Texas Health Presbyterian’s lapse.

“The travel history is very, very important to take right now and it has to be communicated,” Lakey said on Saturday. “If you have a patient with a fever or symptoms that could possibly be related to Ebola, you've got to ask that travel history and take it seriously.”

Duncan, 42, showed up at the hospital with what officials described as fever of 100.1 degrees, abdominal pain for two days, a sharp headache, and decreased urination. The hospital said Duncan told them he hadn't experienced nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea — strong indicators of Ebola.

Texas Health Presbyterian admits that Duncan, who had just moved to Dallas from Liberia on Sept. 20, acknowledged that he had been in Africa in the past four weeks.

“The nurse entered that information in the nursing portion of the electronic medical record,” the hospital said in the original statement.

However, “when Mr. Duncan was asked if he had been around anyone who had been ill, he said that he had not.”

The retraction late Friday did not address how Duncan answered the questions or the hospital’s stance that it followed protocol.

Officials said public health investigators are monitoring 46 people for Ebola symptoms, including nine who are considered to be at higher risk because they had definite contact with Duncan. None have shown any symptoms, but will be tested through late October.

Dallas resident Don Petty said he has grown weary of the “mixed signals” and lack of answers.

“The computers at Presbyterian do not prevent or preclude intake personnel, nurses and doctors from talking to each other about the cases they observe,” Petty told Yahoo News. “I don’t know if we know what we have going on here in Dallas. We’re kind of like the dog that caught the car – what are we going to do with it now?”


http://news.yahoo.com/hospital-retracts-explanation-for-mishandling-dallas-ebola-patient-185642366.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola waste disposal has proven a thorny issue: CDC
Reuters
By Sharon Begley  5 hours ago



A soiled bandage is disposed of into a bio-hazard waste container in a 2004 archive photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. REUTERS/CDC/Jim Gathany/Handout via Reuters



(Reuters) - Handling medical waste generated by an Ebola patient proved to be one of the contingencies that U.S. hospitals were unprepared for, a top U.S. health official said on Saturday, adding that it "took longer than we would have wished" to fix the problem.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) thought the disposal issue was resolved on Sept. 26, just two days before the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States was admitted to a Dallas hospital after initially being turned away.

"But it wasn't," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of CDC told reporters at a news conference.

In short, conflicting classifications on Ebola waste forced the hospital to wait for the U.S. Department of Transportation to issue a special permit before it could move the material.

The permit finally came through on Friday, allowing Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, which is caring for patient Thomas Duncan to transport and dispose of medical waste such as vomit and diarrhea generated during his stay.

While waiting, the Dallas hospital has held the waste at the unit where Duncan is in isolation, said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

County officials have contracted with a disposal company that has received approval to transport the waste, Lakey said on Saturday, but is waiting until after the weekend to remove the items from the hospital.

Conflicting U.S. regulations on transporting such waste caused officials to scramble even before the Dallas Ebola case.

Few U.S. hospitals are equipped with incinerators or large sterilizers called autoclaves needed to safely handle soiled linens, contaminated syringes and virus-spattered protective gear generated from the care of an Ebola patient. The waste needs to be treated before it can travel over public roads.

The CDC advises hospitals to treat items infected with the Ebola virus in leak-proof containers and discard them as they would other regulated medical waste.

However, the Transportation Department classifies Ebola as a Category A infectious agent, meaning it is capable of killing people, rather than as regulated medical waste, which includes non-lethal pathogens.

(Reporting by Sharon Begley in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Andre Grenon)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-waste-disposal-proven-thorny-issue-cdc-201848759.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola patient in Dallas takes turn for worse
Reuters
By Jon Herskovitz and and Lisa Maria Garza  4 hours ago



An entrance sign to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital is seen in Dallas, Texas, October 4, 2014. U.S. health officials have fielded inquiries about as many as 100 potential cases of Ebola since the first patient with the deadly virus was detected in the country, but no new infections have been identified, a senior health official said on Saturday. REUTERS/Jim Young



DALLAS (Reuters) - The first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States took a turn for the worse on Saturday, slipping from serious to critical condition, as health officials reported fielding scores of possible cases around the country that proved to be false alarms.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said news of the Ebola patient in Dallas had alerted hospitals nationwide to check incoming patients for potential risks, particularly those who had recently traveled from the center of the outbreak in West Africa.

The CDC has identified nine people who had contact with the Dallas patient from Liberia, Thomas Eric Duncan, and therefore may have been exposed to the virus, and an additional 40 are being monitored as potential contacts. None have shown symptoms, Frieden said.

Frieden also said U.S. health authorities have responded to inquiries regarding more than 100 potential cases of Ebola since Duncan tested positive earlier this week, but no new infections have been identified.

On Saturday, CDC officials dressed in biohazard suits escorted two passengers off a United Airlines jet that landed at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey because they were believed to be from Liberia and exhibiting signs of illness during the flight, WABC-TV and the Record newspaper reported.

An airport official was quoted by the newspaper as saying CDC officials did not believe the pair, a man and his daughter, were sick with Ebola. The official added that all other passengers on the flight from Brussels were cleared to leave the plane.

Duncan's diagnosis "has really increased attention to what health workers need to do to be alert and make sure a travel history is taken," Frieden told a news conference.

Frieden added that many of the inquiries fielded by the CDC involved people who had traveled outside West Africa.

Duncan, now being treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, was sent home after his first visit to the emergency room, despite telling a nurse there that he had just been to Liberia.

The hospital issued a terse statement on Saturday saying he was in critical condition, a worsening from the "serious condition" he was listed in the previous two days. The hospital declined to elaborate.

The governments of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are struggling to contain the worst outbreak on record of the deadly hemorrhagic fever.

The World Health Organization on Friday updated its death toll to at least 3,439 out of 7,492 suspected, probable or confirmed cases.


TEN PEOPLE REMAIN IN ISOLATION

On Friday, officials said the number of people placed under isolation in Dallas after possible exposure to Duncan had grown to at least 10, including four members of a family moved to an undisclosed house for close monitoring.

Initially, 100 people had been feared to have had direct or indirect contact. All those in isolation were cooperating with public health authorities by staying in quarantine voluntarily, according to Dallas city and county officials.

"There's no one under orders. There's no one that we perceive that needs to be under orders," Judge Clay Jenkins, Dallas County's top elected official, told a news conference late on Friday.

Separately, five public school children who had possibly been exposed to the Ebola patient had been kept home from class in recent days while being monitored as a precaution, though none had shown any symptoms, said Mike Miles, superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District.

Authorities have said the individuals placed in isolation included the four members of a single family whose apartment Duncan was staying in when he fell ill after traveling to Dallas from Liberia on Sept. 19. The six others are healthcare workers, including those who transported Duncan by ambulance on his second trip to the hospital on Sept. 28.

Duncan became ill on the night of Sept. 25 and visited the emergency room at Presbyterian Hospital, but was sent home with antibiotics and not screened for Ebola, despite telling a nurse there that he had just been to Liberia.

The hospital issued a statement on Friday saying that Duncan's travel history was "documented and available to the full care team," including doctors, through electronic records, contrary to the hospital's earlier assertions that staff were not made aware of his recent presence in West Africa.

Just days before flying to Texas via Brussels and Washington, Duncan had helped a pregnant woman who later died of Ebola in Liberia, a fact that he concealed from airport authorities in Liberia before boarding the plane.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins told a Dallas NBC News affiliate his office was considering whether to pursue a possible criminal case against Duncan, though he did not specify on what basis Duncan might be charged.

The woman with whom he was staying, publicly referred to by city officials by her first name only but identified in the media as Louise Troh, was later ordered to stay inside her apartment with her 13-year-old son and two adult nephews who lived there with her.

On Friday, the family agreed to move voluntarily to an isolated four-bedroom house in a gated community in an undisclosed location somewhere within city limits, Jenkins said.

Arrangements for making the home available were made through a "faith friend," Jenkins said, describing the house as spacious and well equipped with amenities. He said the family members were free to venture outdoors on the property.

In the meantime, a cleanup crew contracted by local public health authorities finished the task of sanitizing the family's own apartment and removing perspiration-soaked bed linen, towels and other items used by Duncan.

Jenkins said the materials were placed in plastic bags, doused with bleach and then sealed in plastic barrels that were loaded onto trucks for shipment to an undisclosed location.

The hazardous materials trucks left the Ivy Apartments complex in Dallas on Saturday morning, bringing a sense of relief to neighbors worried about the virus.

"We are happy that they are gone," Thapa Lal Bahadur, an immigrant from Bhutan said, referring to the cleanup crews. "We had a fear about that virus."

(Additional reporting by Sharon Begley and Michele Gershberg in New York; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Tom Brown)


http://news.yahoo.com/dallas-hospital-u-ebola-patient-now-critical-condition-182714039.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Passenger Who Showed Possible Ebola Symptoms Does Not Have Disease
ABC News
By AARON KATERSKY and JOSH MARGOLIN  Oct 4, 2014, 1:40 PM ET



A passenger who was taken off a flight from Brussels to Newark, N.J., today along with his daughter after his sickness triggered fear that he might have Ebola does not have the deadly disease, officials said.

United Airlines Flight 998 was met by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials at Newark Liberty International Airport and the passenger, who was believed to be from Liberia, and his daughter were removed from the plane by a CDC crew in full hazmat gear. They were taken to University Hospital in Newark for testing.

"After an examination by physicians at University Hospital, the symptoms of one individual were found to be consistent with another, minor treatable condition unrelated to Ebola," University Hospital spokeswoman Donna Leusner said. "The second individual, who was traveling with the patient, was asymptomatic. The two individuals will be released with self-monitoring."

A senior federal official said the passenger was exhibiting "flu-like symptoms" on the flight.

According to an official briefed on the situation, preliminary information was that the passenger was vomiting on flight but did not display most of the other symptoms.

Other passengers remained on the plane while the sick passenger and his daughter were being removed.

After they were off the plane and it was determined he was not contagious, the rest of the passengers were allowed off, a source with knowledge of the situation told ABC News.

The passengers were required to give information on how to follow up with them if the need arose.

"Everybody was very calm," said Bob MacRae, who was among the passengers kept at the airport for about two hours. "It's just it dragged out for quite a long time without any real good answers so I think we would have appreciated more information as time went on but we didn't really have any."

There were 255 passengers and a crew of three pilots and 11 flight attendants on the Boeing 777-200.

United Airlines released a brief statement after the flight arrived.

"Upon arrival at Newark Airport from Brussels, medical professionals instructed that customers and crew of United flight 998 remain on board until they could assist an ill customer," the statement said. "We are working with authorities and will accommodate our customers as quickly as we can."


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/passenger-showed-ebola-symptoms-disease/story?id=25965383