Ebola news 10/11

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola ruled out in death of Briton in Macedonia
Reuters
By Kole Casule  16 minutes ago



SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonia on Saturday ruled out the Ebola virus as the cause of death of a British man in the Balkan country on Thursday.

"We have just received the results from the lab in Hamburg and they are negative for Ebola, which means that the patient did not have the Ebola virus," said Dr. Jovanka Kostovska of the Health Ministry's commission for infectious diseases.

Authorities sealed off the hotel where the Briton had been staying and put 35 people in isolation on Thursday when he died. The man had arrived in hospital a few hours earlier suffering from fever, vomiting and internal bleeding, all symptoms of Ebola.

A senior health official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Friday that authorities had "serious indications" that the man had consumed large amounts of alcohol. "So the theory that this might be the cause of death is very much in play," he said.

Kostovska said the cause of death was not yet known but that an autopsy would be carried out.

Confirmation that alcohol, not Ebola, was the culprit will only underscore the panic and difficulty facing hospitals and governments in responding to the threat of the disease spreading in Europe.

A nurse in Spain was the first person to have contracted Ebola outside of Africa. She had helped to treat two priests who had contracted the disease in Africa.

The world's worst Ebola epidemic since the disease was identified in 1976 has killed more than 4,000 people, mainly in West Africa.

The virus, spread by contact with bodily fluids, causes fever and potentially fatal bleeding.

(Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Larry King)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-ruled-death-briton-macedonia-155103855.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Spain Ebola nurse improves as world tries to stem virus
AFP
By Roland Lloyd Parry  2 hours ago



Medical workers prepare an ambulance to transport a Guinean patient suspected of having contracted Ebola in Cascavel, Brazil, on October 10, 2014 (AFP Photo/Luiz Carlos Cruz)



Madrid (AFP) - Countries across the world scrambled Saturday to stem a deadly Ebola outbreak that is getting worse "every day", as the condition of a Spanish nurse infected with the disease improved.

Travellers were screened and safety drills were carried out as a UN official just back from west Africa warned the disease, which has killed more than 4,000 people there, was outpacing efforts to fight it.

"The virus is far ahead of us and every day the situation gets worse," the head of the United Nations' emergency Ebola mission Anthony Banbury, told UN leaders after a tour of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the nations worst hit by the epidemic.

"Collectively we must stop the spread to other countries and ensure that countries are prepared to rapidly detect, control, and eliminate the virus if it is introduced."

A suspect case was ruled out in Brazil, where a Guinean man tested negative for Ebola, the health ministry said, but fears of contagion persisted in Europe.

Attention there focused on Madrid-based nurse Teresa Romero, 44, the first person diagnosed as having caught the disease outside Africa.

Spanish government officials were locked in a meeting on Saturday to coordinate their response to the crisis.

Romero's condition "improved in the night. She is conscious and talks from time to time when she is in a good mood," a hospital source told AFP.

Her condition "is serious but is improving", the source said.

Sixteen other people, mostly hospital staff, are under observation at the Carlos III hospital where Romero is being treated. The hospital said one of them was expecting final test results and could be discharged Saturday.

Doctors started treating Romero with the experimental Ebola treatment ZMapp late on Friday, the source added.

There is still no vaccine or widely available treatment for Ebola, but ZMapp, made in California, is one of several drugs that have been fast-tracked for development.

Romero is thought to have contracted the disease in late September in a Madrid hospital while caring for a Spanish missionary infected with Ebola in Africa who later died.


- Hoaxes fuel Ebola fear -

The WHO said 4,033 people have died from Ebola as of October 8 out of a total of 8,399 registered cases in seven countries.



A team of funeral agents specialised in the burial of victims of the Ebola virus carry a body prior at the Fing Tom cemetery in Freetown, on October 10, 2014 (AFP Photo/Florian Plaucheur)


The sharp rise in deaths came as the UN said aid pledges to fight the outbreak have fallen well short of the $1 billion (800 million euros) needed.

The Spanish health ministry on Friday called on citizens "to continue their daily activities normally," after a series of hoaxes fuelled fears of wider contagion.

Police said on Saturday they had arrested a man in the southern Spanish city of Cadiz who they said had triggered a safety alert by pretending to have Ebola symptoms.

Officials at the Madrid hospital insisted there was no risk of infection from patients under observation, including Romero's husband, who were photographed leaning out of the windows of their hospital rooms.


- Disease safety drills -

Britain held a nationwide exercise on Saturday to test its preparedness for an Ebola outbreak.

The eight-hour exercise featured actors pretending to be infected with Ebola plus medical staff treating them at undisclosed locations around the country.

Britain and the United States have boosted screening at major airports such as London Heathrow and JFK in New York.

In Latin America, Peru and Uruguay have announced similar airport measures and Mexico and Nicaragua planned to tighten controls of migrants heading for US soil as an Ebola precaution.

The Canadian government advised its citizens to leave the west African countries most affected by Ebola. It took measures at its own borders to screen for potentially exposed travellers.


- More money needed -

The United Nations and leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone pleaded for greater help on the frontline of the disease in Africa.

UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson said only a quarter of "the one billion dollars sought" to combat the disease had been pledged. He appealed for doctors, nurses and other healthcare personnel to come forward.

The president of Guinea met Friday with International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde, who promised the organisation was "ready to do more if needed."

Ebola concern spread to the sports world, with hosts Morocco calling for the January-February 2015 Africa Cup of Nations to be postponed, but the African Football Confederation said the schedule would not be changed.


http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-ebola-nurse-better-state-talking-111534883.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola patient displayed symptoms at first ER visit
Associated Press
By EMILY SCHMALL, HOLBROOK MOHR and NOMAAN MERCHANT  1 hour ago



Hospital records given exclusively to the Associated Press suggest the emergency room staff at a Dallas hospital didn't think of Ebola or connect the dots when a patient with the deadly disease walked through their doors. (Oct. 10)



DALLAS (AP) — The man said he'd recently traveled from West Africa, was in severe pain — rating it an eight on a scale of 10 — and had a fever that spiked to 103 degrees, enough to be flagged with an exclamation point in the hospital's record-keeping system.

Thomas Eric Duncan, displaying symptoms that could indicate Ebola, underwent a battery of tests during his initial visit to the Dallas emergency room before eventually being sent home with a prescription for antibiotics, his medical records show.

The Liberian man would become the only person to die from the disease in the U.S.

Duncan's family provided his medical records to The Associated Press — more than 1,400 pages in all. They chronicle his time in the ER, his urgent return to the hospital two days later and his steep decline as his organs began to fail.

In a statement issued Friday, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said it had made procedural changes and continues to "review and evaluate" the decisions surrounding Duncan's care.

Duncan carried the deadly virus with him from his home in Liberia, though he showed no symptoms when he left for the United States. He arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and fell ill several days later.

When he first showed up at the hospital, the man reported severe pain. Doctors gave him CT scans to rule out appendicitis, stroke and numerous other serious ailments. Ultimately, he was prescribed antibiotics and told to take Tylenol, then returned to the apartment where he was staying with a Dallas woman and three other people.

"I have given patient instructions regarding their diagnosis, expectations for the next couple of days, and specific return precautions," an emergency room physician wrote. "The condition of the patient at this time is stable."

After Duncan's condition worsened, someone in the apartment called 911, and paramedics took him back to the hospital on Sept. 28. That's when he was admitted and swiftly put in isolation.

Duncan died Wednesday, almost two weeks after he first sought help. He was 45, according to the records. Relatives said he was 42. The discrepancy could not be immediately resolved.

Josephus Weeks, Duncan's nephew, said his uncle's care was "either incompetence or negligence."



Josephus Weeks, nephew of ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan who died earlier this week in Dallas, looks through hundreds of pages of medical documents in a hotel room Friday, Oct. 10, 2014, in Kannapolis, N.C. Duncan's temperature spiked to 103 degrees during the hours of his initial visit to an emergency room; a fever that was flagged with an exclamation point in the hospital's record-keeping system, his medical records show. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)


Either way "there is a problem, and we need to find the answer to it," he said, adding that it was "conspicuous" that all the white Ebola patients in the U.S. survived "and the one black man died."

Only a fraction of the documents are related to the first visit. Most are related to Duncan's care after he was admitted to the hospital.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who reviewed some of the records, said the care after Duncan's second ER visit was "impeccable." Physicians immediately signaled concern about Ebola and "spared no measure to try to keep him alive."

The documents also show that a nurse recorded early in Duncan's first hospital visit that he recently came to the U.S. from Africa, though he denied having been in contact with anyone sick. There was no indication in the paperwork that he was asked any follow-up questions about his travels.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had alerted hospitals nationwide to take a travel history for patients with Ebola-like symptoms.



Thomas Eric Duncan's family provided his medical records to The Associated Press. The documents chronicle his hospital care before becoming the first patient to die from Ebola in the U.S. They've also raised concerns from his relatives. (Oct. 10)


The hospital said it had made changes to its intake process and other practices "to better screen for all critical indicators" of Ebola.

Doctors who evaluated Duncan did not respond to messages left at their offices by the AP.

A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services said the agency was considering investigating the hospital for compliance with state health and safety laws.

The hospital has repeatedly changed its account of what the medical team knew when it released Duncan from the emergency room early on Sept. 26.

A few days later, on Sept. 30, it initially said Duncan did not tell the staff he had been in Africa. On Oct. 1, it said Duncan's nurse had been aware of the Africa connection but did not share that information with the rest of the medical team.



Josephus Weeks, nephew of ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan who died earlier this week in Dallas, sits behind a stack of medical documents in a hotel room, Friday, Oct. 10, 2014, in Kannapolis, N.C. Duncan's temperature spiked to 103 degrees during the hours of his initial visit to an emergency room; a fever that was flagged with an exclamation point in the hospital's record-keeping system, his medical records show. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)


The next day, the hospital blamed a flaw in its electronic health-records systems for not making Duncan's travel history directly accessible to his doctor.

A day later, on Oct. 3, the hospital issued a statement saying Duncan's travel history had been available to all hospital workers, including doctors, who treated him during his initial visit.

Duncan's travel history was listed in a nursing notice but not in the physician's note, Adalja said.

The patient's 103-degree fever might warrant "a little more investigation," Adalja said. A chart showed Duncan did not arrive with a fever but left with one.

After it became clear that Duncan was suffering from Ebola, another option would have been to give him a transfusion from an Ebola survivor in the hopes that antibodies in the blood could help him fight the disease.



Josephus Weeks, nephew of ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan who died earlier this week in Dallas, speaks with a reporter in a hotel room, Friday, Oct. 10, 2014, in Kannapolis, N.C. Duncan's temperature spiked to 103 degrees during the hours of his initial visit to an emergency room; a fever that was flagged with an exclamation point in the hospital's record-keeping system, his medical records show. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)


But Duncan did not receive a transfusion because the blood types did not match, the hospital said.

Dr. Kent Brantly, the first American flown back to the U.S. for treatment of Ebola, confirmed that account, saying he spoke with a doctor caring for Duncan and was willing to donate blood. But their blood types were incompatible, he said Friday in an interview with Abilene Christian University's alumni magazine.

Christine Mann, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said Friday that Duncan's remains have been cremated, but she did not say when, where or by whom. Meanwhile, drums of potentially contaminated material taken from the apartment where he became ill was incinerated Friday at a hazardous material processing center in Port Arthur.

Also Friday, the World Health Organization announced that the Ebola death toll had surpassed 4,000 confirmed, probable or suspected Ebola deaths. All but nine were in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea.

___

Schmall reported from North Carolina. Associated Press Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington, writer Terry Wallace in Dallas and researchers Rhonda Shafner and Barbara Sambriski in New York contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-patient-displayed-symptoms-first-er-visit-150148110.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UK tests readiness for Ebola in national exercise
AFP
6 hours ago



Doctors and nurses pictured during a training exercise at the Army Medical Services Training Centre (AMSTC) at Strensall near York, northern England on October 7, 2014 (AFP Photo/Graham Harrison)



London (AFP) - Government ministers and medical professionals are among dozens of people taking part in a huge Ebola readiness exercise across Britain on Saturday.

During eight hours of activities at secret locations across the country, actors were simulating symptoms of the deadly virus to test the response of emergency services.

Some staff wore personal protective equipment to ensure a realistic atmosphere for the exercise.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was chairing a simulated meeting of the government's Cobra emergency committee.

Prime Minister David Cameron organised the exercise to ramp up Britain's contingency plan against Ebola, which has killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa.

The Department of Health has not revealed the locations of Saturday's exercise.



Lieutenant Colonel Alison McCourt briefs staff of 22 Field Hospital before the start of a training exercise at the Army Medical Services Training Centre (AMSTC), at Strensall near York, on October 7, 2014 (AFP Photo/Graham Harrison)


A spokeswoman said: "The public can be assured that we have been planning our response to an Ebola case in the UK for many months now since the outbreak started in West Africa. It is vital that we test these plans in as realistic a situation as possible - with real people.

"It is important to remember that the overall risk to the public in the UK continues to be very low, and the UK has some of the best public health protection systems in the world with well-developed and well-tested systems for managing infectious disease."

Cameron this week defended the decision to introduce enhanced screening for the virus at major airports and terminals, saying it had been taken on "medical advice".

"Enhanced screening will initially be implemented at London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports and Eurostar terminals," the government said in a statement on Thursday.

It said this would include researching passengers' recent travel history "as well as a possible medical assessment, conducted by trained medical personnel rather than border force staff".

The government said this would offer "an additional level of protection" on top of screening of passengers boarding planes in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

"However, it is important to stress that given the nature of this disease, no system could offer 100 percent protection from non-symptomatic cases," it added.

A Number 10 spokeswoman said the decision to introduce enhanced screening for Ebola was based on advice from the Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies.


http://news.yahoo.com/uk-tests-readiness-ebola-national-exercise-100441088.html

[Buster's Uncle]

New Jersey officials order 'symptom-less' NBC News crew into Ebola quarantine
Reuters
9 minutes ago


(Reuters) - New Jersey health officials have ordered into mandatory quarantine an NBC News crew that worked with an American cameraman who contracted Ebola in Liberia, though the group has no symptoms, its health department said on Saturday.

Freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo is receiving treatment at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, which said on Friday that he had shown modest improvement and was in stable condition.

The death this week of the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States has increased fears that Ebola could spread outside West Africa, where it has killed more than 4,000 people, and U.S. health authorities are stepping up efforts to stop the spread of the deadly virus.

Medical teams at New York's JFK airport, armed with Ebola questionnaires and temperature guns, began screening travelers from three West African nations on Saturday.

The NBC News crew had agreed with New Jersey health officials to sequester themselves upon return the United States but then failed to do so, Donna Leusner, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Health, said in a statement.

The mandatory quarantine was issued late on Friday and will ensure the group remains confined until Oct. 22, the end of a 21-day maximum incubation period for Ebola, Leusner said.

"The NBC crew remains symptom-free, so there is no reason for concern of exposure to the community," she said.

She declined to provide additional details about the crew, its size and what led to the mandatory order being issued, citing patient privacy.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Editing by Frank McGurty and Raissa Kasolowsky)


http://news.yahoo.com/jersey-officials-order-symptom-less-nbc-news-crew-163935231.html

[Buster's Uncle]

New York's JFK airport rolls out Ebola screenings
AFP
1 hour ago



A woman stands in the American Airlines/US Airways Terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport on July 22, 2014 in New York City (AFP Photo/Eric Thayer)



New York (AFP) - New York's JFK airport was set to roll out health screenings for travelers arriving from Ebola-hit West African nations on Saturday, as the death toll from the deadly virus topped 4,000.

Passengers arriving from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea will have their temperatures taken, be assessed for signs of illness and answer questions about their health and exposure history, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

Suspected cases could be barred from traveling further and referred to nearby hospitals if necessary, CDC said.

The health checks were one layer of protection put in place and CDC cautioned that no screenings are air tight.

"Exit screening might not find every person with Ebola, however, it does not have to be perfect to help reduce the spread of Ebola," it said in a statement.

The scaled-up measures come after the death on Wednesday of Thomas Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the disease outside Africa, who succumbed to the disease in a Texas hospital after being given an experimental drug.



Delta Airlines planes sit at Terminal 4 at John F. Kennedy Airport on July 22, 2014 in New York City (AFP Photo/Eric Thayer)


The case sparked panic about the possible spread of the deadly virus in the United States, though President Barack Obama said the chances of a US Ebola outbreak were "extraordinarily low."

JFK was the first airport to implement the screenings, and four other airports -- Newark in New York, Chicago's O'Hare, Washington's Dulles and Atlanta international airport in Georgia -- are set to start the checks next week.

The screenings were not expected to clog arrival terminals, with only about 150 passengers per day set to be examined at all ports of entry, CDC director Tom Frieden told CNN.

Around 50 percent of arrivals from the three West African countries pass though New York's JFK airport, a major travel hub.

Together, all five airports account for 94 percent of all travellers coming into the United States from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the worst-affected countries.

CDC said it already has 20 quarantine stations at airports throughout the United States.


http://news.yahoo.com/yorks-jfk-airport-rolls-ebola-screenings-151211464.html

[Buster's Uncle]

No change to African Nations Cup despite Ebola - CAF
Reuters
4 hours ago


JOHANNESBURG, Oct 11 (Reuters) – Organisers have no intention of changing the dates of next year's African Nations Cup even though hosts Morocco called for a postponement of the finals because of fears over the Ebola virus. But the Confederation of African Football (CAF) said in a statement on Saturday it would meet the Moroccan government next month, sending a high-powered delegation to discuss the issue in Rabat led by its president Issa Hayatou.

The host nation's government made a shock announcement on Friday, saying it wanted the 16-team tournament from Jan. 17-Feb. 8 postponed following a report by its health ministry into the possible spread of the virus.

"CAF acknowledges this request and confirms it will make no changes to its calendar of scheduled competitions," the organisers said.

"We have taken into account the recommendations of the World Health Organization and various medical experts. It should be noted that since the first edition in 1957 no African Cup of Nations has ever been postponed or deferred."

Last month the Moroccan government ordered a detailed report into the possibility that the tournament might spread the disease although no cases have yet been reported in the north African country.

CAF had already banned international matches in Liberia, Guinea and Ebola-affected Sierra Leone. The latter two are still involved in Nations Cup qualifiers and will clash later on Saturday.


CASABLANCA DATE

Also on Saturday, Morocco are allowing Guinea to host their qualifier against Ghana in Casablanca.

"The request of the Moroccans will be discussed at the next meeting of the CAF executive committee scheduled for Nov. 2 in Algiers," the organisers added.

"Subsequently a meeting will be organised between CAF and the Moroccans in Rabat on Nov. 3. The delegation will be led by CAF president Issa Hayatou."

The world's worst Ebola epidemic since the disease was identified in 1976 has killed more than 4,000 people, mainly in West Africa.

The virus, spread by contact with bodily fluids, causes fevers and potentially fatal bleeding.

Several foreign health workers have been repatriated for treatment after contracting the disease in West Africa.


http://news.yahoo.com/no-change-african-nations-cup-despite-ebola-caf-115847638--sow.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia: 41 UN staffers under Ebola observation
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  5 hours ago



Liberia women walk past a sign warning people of the deadly Ebola virus in Monrovia, Liberia. Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. The number of people killed in the Ebola outbreak has risen above 4,000, according to the World Health Organization. (AP Photo/ Abbas Dulleh)



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia's United Nations peacekeeping mission has placed 41 staff members, including 20 military personnel, under "close medical observation" after an international member of its medical team was diagnosed with Ebola this week — the second mission member to test positive for the deadly disease.

"This measure is precautionary and meant to ensure no possible further transmission of the disease," the mission said in a statement Friday. "None of the personnel who are contacts have shown any symptoms but will be observed for the full 21-day possible incubation period."

The World Health Organization says 21 days is the maximum incubation period for Ebola, which is spread via the bodily fluids of infected people. The 41 staffers were identified as having possibly come into contact with the member of the medical team, whose name and nationality have not been disclosed.

The patient tested positive Monday and arrived in Germany Thursday for treatment — the third Ebola patient to be flown there. The St. Georg Hospital in Leipzig said this week the patient would be placed in a special isolation unit.

The first U.N. staffer in Liberia to come down with Ebola died Sept. 26.

The mission is implementing additional measures to avoid more cases, including daily temperature checks and screening at a military facility where 209 people work, Friday's statement said.

Liberia has recorded 2,316 confirmed, suspected and probable Ebola deaths — far more than any other country touched by the current outbreak, according to the latest World Health Organization figures released Friday.

The outbreak has now killed more than 4,000 people in total, the WHO said.

More than 400 health care workers have contracted Ebola, and 233 of those have died, according to the WHO. Liberia and Sierra Leone have both recorded 95 health worker deaths.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-41-un-staffers-under-ebola-observation-110103858.html

[Buster's Uncle]

IMF 'ready to do more' for Guinea, hard-hit by Ebola
AFP
11 hours ago



Guinea President Alpha Conde (R) greets International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde before a meeting on the Ebola crisis during the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Group annual meetings October 9, 2014 in Washington, DC (AFP Photo/Chip Somodevilla)



Washington (AFP) - The president of Guinea, one of the West African nations hard-hit by the Ebola crisis, met with IMF Director Christine Lagarde, who promised the organization was "ready to do more if needed."

The virus, which emerged in Guinea at the start of the year, has infected around 1,300 Guineans, killing 768 of them.

Global aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Thursday a surge of Ebola cases in Guinea had pushed its treatment unit in the capital Conakry near saturation point.

"Beyond the loss of life and social dislocation, it is threatening to reverse the advances made by these countries in recent years in economic development and poverty reduction," Lagarde said in a statement following a meeting with President Alpha Conde.

"We have already provided $41 million to Guinea on an emergency basis. We are ready to do more if needed," she said.

The IMF fast-tracked $130 million (102.5 million euros) in aid two weeks ago to fight the Ebola epidemic after the governments of the worst-hit countries in West Africa said they were desperately counting on promises of global aid to be backed up with cash.

The IMF financing included $41 million for Guinea, $49 million for Liberia, and $40 million for Sierra Leone.

The World Health Organization said 4,033 people have died from Ebola as of October 8 out of a total of 8,399 registered cases in seven countries. The sharp rise in deaths came as the UN said aid pledges to fight the outbreak have fallen well short of the $1 billion (800 million euros) needed.


http://news.yahoo.com/imf-ready-more-guinea-hard-hit-ebola-052110668.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Cities, states scramble after Dallas's Ebola missteps expose planning gaps
Reuters
By Sharon Begley and Yasmeen Abutaleb  5 hours ago



A worker in a hazardous material suit removes the contents of the apartment unit where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas, October 6, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young



NEW YORK (Reuters) - The missteps in Dallas's handling of the first Ebola case diagnosed in the United States have revealed an uncomfortable reality: state and city plans for handling the deadly virus are based on generic recommendations for everything from measles to floods, to hurricanes and dirty bombs.

Officials acknowledge they need to do more.

Reuters checks with health departments in six states and cities that have large West African communities, Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maryland and Rhode Island, show that they are scrambling to adapt those generic plans to Ebola.

If they are not able to stay one step ahead of any cases, then lapses that characterized Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan’s treatment in Dallas could recur. In the Texas case that led to unnecessary exposure to the victim.

“To think the first patients would go flawlessly are an overestimation of our systems,” said Dr. Craig Smith, medical director for infectious disease at University Hospital in Augusta, Georgia. “I would expect there would be a few stumbles.”

    There is a lot to do: hospital drills, 911 emergency operator guidelines, quarantine rules, even details such as checking that plastic body bags meet the minimal thickness - 150 micrometers - recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It takes a certain amount of reverse engineering to get the plan to where it can respond to new, emerging threats,” said political scientist Chris Nelson, an expert on public health systems at Rand Corp.

    While departments contacted by Reuters said they were confident they would be able to identify, treat and contain Ebola, "nobody is charged with reviewing all 2,800 departments' plans," said Jack Herrmann, chief of public health programs at the National Association of County & City Health Officials.

    Among the lapses in Dallas were the hospital's failure to admit Duncan when he first went to the emergency room and told staff there of his recent arrival from Liberia, delaying his treatment by at least two crucial days. It took almost a week to clean the apartment where he stayed. And health officials briefly lost track of a homeless man who they were monitoring for Ebola symptoms.

     “We're learning from what's going on in Dallas, too," said Dr. Jay Varma, a deputy commissioner at the New York City Department of Health. "We have a plan that we think is strong but we don't have the final answers to a lot of questions."

     While the CDC advises states on 15 “preparedness capabilities” they need to respond to public health emergencies, the list was last evaluated in 2011 and is fairly general— “emergency operations coordination” and “information sharing”.

Local health departments have varying capabilities, preventing the CDC from crafting a single national plan, so it provides guidelines. Thus local authorities decide what is an “adequate” stockpile of protective gear, and which community and other “partners” need to be involved.

    That reflects the common view that states and localities should lead health emergencies as a matter of right and responsibility, said Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, an expert on infectious disease.

There is no detailed national plan or protocol for Ebola, he said, and "some states are much, much better prepared from a public health perspective to handle (an outbreak) than others."

    The closest things to nationwide plans are those developed for pandemic flu and for so-called "all-hazards emergencies," said Herrmann.

Still, it would be difficult if not impossible for those preparing for a health emergency to learn separate protocols for every individual contingency.

The generic plans cover obvious needs such as calling in additional staff to handle a flood of patients. There are also less obvious needs: if schools are closed, hospitals will need to provide daycare for their workers’ children, said Jeff Levi, executive director of the private non-profit Trust for America's Health, a research and advocacy group.


    HOSPITAL DRILLS       

    Even top hospitals are learning that a plan for dealing with infectious disease outbreaks may still leave them exposed to Ebola.

    Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently ran an Ebola drill with a pretend patient arriving at the emergency room, being admitted and placed in an isolation unit.

    During the drill, when doctors and nurses removed gowns, masks and other protective equipment "they wanted to get out of that stuff and do it quickly," Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine, told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Tuesday.

    Moving quickly raised the risk of accidentally touching fluids on clothes, a likely reason for infection of healthcare workers in West Africa and possibly Spain, Schaffner said. All staffers have since been instructed to remove protective gear with a partner, "to count to 10" during each step "and do it slowly."

    According to National Nurses United, 76 percent of nurses surveyed say their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of Ebola patients, 85 percent say their hospital has not provided education sessions where nurses can ask questions, and just over one-third say their hospital has insufficient supplies of face shields and impermeable gowns.

    Dr. Leon Yeh, director of emergency medicine at Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, said, "It's happened so fast we haven't drilled specifically on Ebola."   

   That patchiness characterizes other elements of Ebola preparedness: New York City 911 dispatchers have been asking callers with Ebola symptoms about their travel history for about a week, but in Ohio's Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, they have not.

Some blame lack of funds.

    The CDC’s budget for Public Health Emergency Preparedness fell from $1.1 billion in 2006 to $698 million in 2010 to $585 million last year. From 2008 to 2013, local health departments lost 48,300 jobs to layoffs and attrition, or about 15 percent. "Those job losses absolutely eroded the capabilities that would be needed if we had to deal with Ebola," said Herrmann.

    In New York City, several hospitals have run drills with actors portraying Ebola patients. Nurses, doctors and lobby security guards - who might be the first people a patient encounters – are put to the test.

    "It's the nitty-gritty details that we're now trying to work out," Varma said, including how to dispose of waste generated by an Ebola patient and who would provide food for people under quarantine.

(Additional reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, editing by Michele Gershberg and Peter Henderson)


http://news.yahoo.com/cities-states-scramble-dallass-ebola-missteps-expose-planning-110808761--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Spain PM visits hospital treating Ebola patient
Associated Press
By CIARAN GILES  22 hours ago



People walk past an advert calling for financial help to fight Ebola in Africa on Friday, Oct. 10, 2014 in Madrid downtown, Spain. A Spanish hospital official says the nursing assistant Teresa Romero, infected with Ebola, is "stable," hours after authorities described her condition as critical. Romero is the first person known to have caught the disease outside the outbreak zone in West Africa, contracting the virus while helping treat a Spanish missionary who became infected in West Africa, and later died. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)



MADRID (AP) — Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy made a surprise visit Friday to the Madrid hospital where a nursing assistant infected with Ebola is being treated, trying to brush aside criticism from unions and opposition politicians alleging the national health care system provided substandard high-risk disease training and protective gear to doctors, nurses and ambulance personnel.

A group of health care workers jeered, shouting "Out! Out!" as Rajoy's motorcade drove past and one protester threw small objects at it.

The infected nursing assistant, Teresa Romero, was scheduled to start receiving the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp after Spain managed to obtain some of the drug, which is in extremely short supply worldwide, a spokeswoman for Madrid's regional health agency said on condition of anonymity because of agency rules. She could not immediately provide information on where Spain had obtained it.

There is no proof that ZMapp works, and at least one Ebola patient who received the drug produced by a small U.S. company later died.

Romero was listed in serious but stable condition at Madrid's Carlos III hospital, where Rajoy spent an hour inside talking with health care professionals. He did not directly address the claims that Spain was ill-prepared to deal with Romero's case when she tested positive Monday, but he announced the country is setting up a high-level special commission to prevent an outbreak of Ebola that will meet daily.

Rajoy also praised Spanish health care workers and said the World Health Organization thinks "the risk is very low that this disease will spread in the future" in Spain and Europe.



Medical practitioners wearing protective clothing, up, work while Javier Limon, the husband of the nursing assistant infected with Ebola, is seen trough a window, down, inside an isolated ward on the sixth floor of the the Carlos III hospital in Madrid, Spain, Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. A Spanish hospital official says the nursing assistant infected with Ebola is "stable," hours after authorities described her condition as critical. She is the first person known to have caught the disease outside the outbreak zone in West Africa. She contracted the virus while helping treat a Spanish missionary who became infected in West Africa, and later died. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)


Romero, 44, is the first person known to have caught the disease outside West Africa in the current Ebola outbreak.

She was helping to care for a Spanish priest infected in West Africa who died at the hospital on Sept. 25. Health authorities suspect she may have been infected after touching her gloved hand to her face while taking off protective gear.

Romero's husband is also quarantined, along with a nurse who displayed possible symptoms but tested negative for Ebola in a first test and will undergo a second one. Ten people who came into contact with Romero checked themselves into the hospital voluntarily for observation for 21 days instead of staying at home.

____

Associated Press writers Jorge Sainz, Alan Clendenning and Harold Heckle in Madrid contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/spain-ebola-nurse-stable-serious-downturn-073837737.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-screening program launched at New York's JFK airport
Reuters
By Sebastien Malo  16 minutes ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - Medical teams at New York's JFK airport, armed with Ebola questionnaires and temperature guns, began screening travelers from three West African countries on Saturday, as U.S. health authorities stepped up efforts to stop the spread of the virus.

John F. Kennedy Airport is the first of five U.S. airports to start enhanced screening of U.S.-bound travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where most of the outbreak's more than 4,000 deaths have occurred.

Nearly all of passengers traveling to the United States from those countries arrive at JFK, Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta. The new procedures will begin at the other four airports on Thursday.

Before it even began, some critics questioned whether the screenings would be effective in stopping infected travelers from entering the country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the airport screening is just one aspect of an overall strategy to fight the spread of Ebola.

"No matter how many of these procedures are put into place, we can't get the risk to zero," said Martin Cetron, director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at the CDC.

"This new entry-screening procedure is just one part of a multi-layered approach," he told a news conference at JFK on Saturday morning.

Other measures include screening of passengers upon boarding a flight and the protocol to manage an illness when it occurs during a journey, he said.

JFK is the entry point for nearly half of the roughly 150 travelers who arrive daily in the United States from the three West African countries, and those passengers amount to about one-tenth of 1 percent of all international daily arrivals at the airport, the CDC said.

The screenings are being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection (CBP), under CDC direction. Given there are no direct flights from the affected countries, CBP staff will identify passengers who have flown from there by looking at information about their trip as well as by checking passports, said R. Gil Kerlikowske, the CBP commissioner.

Using FDA-approved infrared temperature guns, staffers will check for elevated temperatures among passengers whose journeys began or included a stop in one of the three African countries.

As a temporary measure, the CBP has authorized U.S. Coast Guard personnel to take temperatures, but the CBP will contract "professional medical staff" in the future, Kerlikowske said.

Screeners will also assess passengers for signs of potential illness and ask them questions about their health and whether they may have come into contact with an Ebola patient.

For those with a fever or other symptoms or possible exposure to Ebola, the CDC will decide what steps to take next. Health authorities may decide to take a person to a hospital for evaluation, testing and treatment, or to quarantine or isolate the patient under federal law, according to the CDC.


SCREENING QUESTIONED

Even before the screening began, critics questioned it.

U.S. health authorities have never before used fever monitoring to screen travelers, said Lawrence Gostin, who teaches global health law at Georgetown Law School, and such monitoring didn't work well when used in Canada and Asia during the SARS outbreak in 2002.

Fever-monitoring "had virtually no effectiveness," he said. Taking over-the-counter medication during the flight can easily help travelers bring down a fever to evade detection, he said.

Passengers also could lie on questionnaires, said Dr. David Mabey, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "People may not fill them in very truthfully. They don't want to be delayed for hours," Mabey said.

Passengers are already screened when they depart from the three West African countries. In the two months since those screenings began, only 77 of the 36,000 screened travelers were denied boarding, the CDC said. Many of them were diagnosed later with malaria, and none with Ebola.

Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of Ebola in Dallas this week, was able to fly to the United States from Liberia because he didn't have a fever when screened at the airport in the capital, Monrovia.

Duncan filled out a questionnaire saying he had not been in contact with anyone infected with Ebola. Liberian officials have said Duncan lied on the questionnaire and had been in contact with a pregnant woman who later died. However, a friend of his family has said Duncan did not know the woman had Ebola.

Both Mabey and Gostin said it was unlikely that a person who passed the temperature screening at departure time would develop a high fever during the plane ride to the United States

But Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths, who teaches about infectious disease at Tufts University School of Medicine, said the U.S. screenings "will incrementally pick up some people" and are a valuable tool to raise awareness about early detection and treatment of the illness.

(Additional reporting and writing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Frank McGurty and Frances Kerry)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-begins-enhanced-ebola-screening-program-yorks-jfk-040617098.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Stepped-up Ebola screening starts at NYC airport
Associated Press
By KAREN MATTHEWS  1 hour ago



A Moroccan health worker uses a thermometer to screen a passenger at the arrivals hall of the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca, on Thursday, Oct 9, 2014. Airline passengers arriving in the U.S. from three West African countries will face temperature checks using no-touch thermometers and other screening measures at five American airports, starting with New York’s Kennedy on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2014. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Abdeljalil Bounhar)



NEW YORK (AP) — Customs and health officials began taking the temperatures of passengers arriving at New York's Kennedy International Airport from three West African countries on Saturday in a stepped-up screening effort meant to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus.

Federal health officials said the entry screenings, which will expand to four additional U.S. airports in the next week, add another layer of protection to halt the spread of a disease that has killed more than 4,000 people.

"Already there are 100 percent of the travelers leaving the three infected countries are being screened on exit. Sometimes multiple times temperatures are checked along that process," Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine for the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, said at a briefing at Kennedy.

Cetron added, "No matter how many procedures are put into place, we can't get the risk to zero."

The screening will be expanded over the next week to four other airports: New Jersey's Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.

Customs officials say about 150 people travel daily from or through Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea to the United States, and nearly 95 percent of them land first at one of the five airports.

Public health workers use no-touch thermometers to take the temperatures of the travelers from the three Ebola-ravaged countries; those who have a fever will be interviewed to determine whether they may have had contact with someone infected with Ebola. There are quarantine areas at each of the five airports that can be used if necessary.

There are no direct flights to the U.S. from the three countries, but Homeland Security officials said last week they can track passengers back to where their trips began, even if they make several stops. Airlines from Morocco, France and Belgium are still flying in and out of West Africa.

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the new screening measures are "really just belt and suspenders" to support protections already in place. Border Patrol agents already look for people who are obviously ill, as do flight crews.

Health officials expect false alarms from travelers who have fever from other illnesses. Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms begin, and it spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of patients.

Cetron said more than 36,000 travelers leaving West Africa have been screened for Ebola in the last two months and none was infected with Ebola.

The extra screening at U.S. airports probably wouldn't have identified Thomas Eric Duncan when he arrived from Liberia last month because he had no symptoms while traveling. Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., died Wednesday in Dallas.

Experts say the federal government has broad authority to screen passengers and quarantine them if necessary.

The CDC cited as legal authority the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, under which the government regulates trade with foreign countries. The 1944 Public Health Service Act also allows the federal government to take action to prevent communicable diseases, which include viral hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola, from spreading into the country.


http://news.yahoo.com/stepped-ebola-screening-starting-nyc-airport-061815919.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Comment triggers Ebola scare on flight from Philadelphia: reports
Reuters
October 10, 2014 10:36 AM



(Reuters) - An incident on board a U.S. Airways flight from Philadelphia caused an Ebola scare this week, leading officials to investigate the plane when it landed in the Dominican Republic, the airline said on Friday.

The alarm was prompted on Wednesday when a passenger said he had Ebola, media reports said. A fellow passenger heard the man's comment and told a flight attendant, who then alerted the plane's captain, according to the reports.

"We are following the direction of, and strictly adhering to, all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines in place for airlines in response to the Ebola virus," Joshua Freed, a spokesman for U.S. Airways, owned by American Airlines Group Inc, said in a statement.

Officials in the Dominican Republic investigated the flight and cleared the aircraft, the airline said. U.S. television footage obtained from a passenger showed local officials in blue-colored protective suits boarding the plane after it landed and appearing to escort a man off the plane.

Freed did not say what specifically prompted the investigation.

The incident comes as the U.S. government prepares to start screening passengers from West Africa for fever at five major airports over the next week and cleaners at a New York on Thursday stopped work in protest over what they say is insufficient protection for workers whose jobs include cleaning up vomit and bathrooms.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Scott Malone and Susan Heavey)


http://news.yahoo.com/triggers-ebola-scare-flight-philadelphia-reports-135357025.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola News Guide: Deaths keep rising; world reacts
Associated Press
By CONNIE CASS  19 hours ago



A 25-bed hospital being constructed in Liberia by the US military to care for health workers stricken by the deadly Ebola virus is nearing completion, according to US military officials. (Oct. 10)



American Marines scrambled to add Ebola treatment beds in Liberia on Friday, while the U.S. and Britain readied new disease screenings for passengers arriving at their airports from West Africa. Doctors tried out experimental drugs in a global battle against the deadly sickness.

The U.N. said nations must all work together — and fast — or "the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever."

The death toll in West Africa passed 4,000 for the first time in the World Health Organization's count of confirmed and suspected Ebola cases.

As worry ricocheted around the globe, medical records obtained by The Associated Press underscored questions about the United States' front-line defenses. The Dallas hospital that initially missed the nation's first Ebola diagnosis put a Liberian man through a battery of tests and CT scans for appendicitis, stroke and other serious ailments before sending him home, the records show.

Before he was released, Thomas Eric Duncan's fever spiked to 103 degrees, he reported severe pain and told a nurse that he'd recently come from Africa. But doctors didn't think of Ebola until he returned to the hospital two days later by ambulance. On Wednesday, Duncan became the first person to die of Ebola in the United States.

Questions linger about the readiness of the medical system in Spain, too.



Thomas Eric Duncan's temperature spiked to 103 degrees during the hours of his initial visit to an emergency room - a fever that was flagged with an exclamation point in the hospital's record-keeping system. (Oct. 10)


Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's motorcade was jeered by health care workers when he made a surprise visit Friday to the Madrid hospital where a nursing assistant is lying sick with Ebola, which she apparently caught while treating a patient infected in West Africa. Unions and opposition politicians said the national health care system didn't give medical workers the proper training and protective gear.

At the United Nations, the focus was on the three countries where the virus is multiplying out of control — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"As long as there is one case of Ebola in any one of these countries, no country is safe from the dangers posed by this deadly virus," said Anthony Banbury, who heads the new United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response.

A guide to development around the globe:

___

The number of Ebola cases is probably doubling every three-to-four weeks and without a mass global mobilization "the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever," the U.N. special envoy on the disease says. (Oct. 10)


ON THE GROUND

The U.S. military is rushing to set up a 25-bed hospital in Liberia for health workers who catch the disease. Because Ebola is spread by bodily fluids such as blood and urine, West African doctors and nurses are especially vulnerable to infection at a moment when their nations need them desperately.

Rear Adm. Scott Giberson, the acting U.S. deputy surgeon general, said the facility would be ready within weeks.

"We have experience deploying in lots of medical settings," Giberson said. "However, this is unique."

In addition to the hospital, a vanguard of Marines brought aircraft this week that will help ferry construction supplies for 17 treatment units with 100 beds each, to be finished by the end of November.



Medical practitioners shout against Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy during his visit to the Carlos III hospital in Madrid, Spain, Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. A Spanish hospital official says the nursing assistant infected with Ebola is "stable," hours after authorities described her condition as critical. She is the first person known to have caught the disease outside the outbreak zone in West Africa. She contracted the virus while helping treat a Spanish missionary who became infected in West Africa, and later died. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)


The total American forces responding to the crisis may reach 4,000, U.S. officials said.

___

AT BIG U.S. AIRPORTS

New York's Kennedy International was slated to begin checking some arriving passengers Saturday for fever, which could be a sign of Ebola but also is common with many other illnesses.

Passengers traveling from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea are to be screened using no-touch thermometers. Over the next week, the screenings will expand to Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta. Together, those airports receive more than 90 percent of passengers from the three nations.



Members of the Army's 101st Airborne Division conduct a training exercise at Ft. Campbell, Ky., Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014. Members will travel to Liberia to build treatment centers and conduct medical training as part of the fight against the Ebola epidemic. (AP Photo/The Courier-Journal, Stephen Lance Dennee)


A U.S. citizen who presents a heightened risk of disease upon arrival at the United States has a legal right to re-enter the country and be safely quarantined, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University. That same guarantee would not apply to non-U.S. citizens, but as a practical matter, giving them immediate treatment might be safer than putting them on a plane back home.

British authorities announced their own plans to impose enhanced screening at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, as well as Eurostar rail terminals. Prime Minister David Cameron's office said passengers arriving from West Africa would be questioned about their travels and contacts.

___

THE HUNT FOR A CURE

Texas Presbyterian, the Dallas hospital where Duncan died, said he became the first Ebola patient to receive the investigative antiviral drug Brincidofovir.



Graphic provides information about enhanced screening procedures at U.S. airports for Ebola; 2c x 4 inches; 96.3 mm x 101 mm;


In Spain, nursing assistant Teresa Romero was to be treated with the experimental drug ZMapp, which is in extraordinarily short supply worldwide, a spokeswoman for Madrid's regional health agency said.

Meanwhile, a possible Ebola vaccine developed by the U.S. government is being tested on up to 40 medical workers in the West African nation of Mali, which shares a border with Guinea. If safety tests go well, larger trials could be done in the outbreak zone early next year. The vaccine also is being safety tested in the United States and Britain.

A group of leading doctors published a letter in the journal Lancet on Friday, arguing that promising Ebola drugs should be tried in West Africa without randomized trials in which one group of patients receives a new drug or vaccine and another group receives standard care or a placebo so the results can be compared.

"We accept that RCTs (randomized controlled trials trials) can generate strong evidence in ordinary circumstances; not, however in the midst of the worst Ebola epidemic in history," wrote the authors, including Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The scientists propose different approaches to testing in this emergency, such as trying different experimental treatments at the same time at different sites.




Medical practitioners wearing protective clothing, up, work while Javier Limon, the husband of the nursing assistant infected with Ebola, is seen trough a window, down, inside an isolated ward on the sixth floor of the the Carlos III hospital in Madrid, Spain, Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. A Spanish hospital official says the nursing assistant infected with Ebola is "stable," hours after authorities described her condition as critical. She is the first person known to have caught the disease outside the outbreak zone in West Africa. She contracted the virus while helping treat a Spanish missionary who became infected in West Africa, and later died. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

___

A PLEA FOR FASTER ACTION

The number of Ebola cases is probably doubling every three-to-four weeks, says the U.N. special envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro.

Without a mass mobilization of nations and relief groups to help West Africa, he told the U.N. General Assembly, "it will be impossible to get this disease quickly under control, and the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever."

The world's response needs to be 20 times greater than it is now, Nabarro said.

Yet he said the United Nations is committed to rallying the response necessary to stop Ebola "within a matter of months — a few months."

___

FLYING THE NERVOUS SKIES

Some joke.

A man on a flight from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic apparently spoiled his own vacation by declaring aloud before the plane landed that he was sick with Ebola.

Video taken by passengers Wednesday shows him being led off the plane by officials in blue hazmat suits.

The man, whose name was not released, was checked at the airport infirmary in the resort city of Punta Cana, Dominican officials said. Once it was determined that he didn't have Ebola, the passenger was put on a plane back to the United States.

___

Connie Cass reported from Washington. Emily Schmall in North Carolina, Holbrook Mohr and Nomaan Merchant in Dallas, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, Robbie Corey-Boulet in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Ciaran Giles in Madrid and Harry Dunphy in Washington contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-news-guide-deaths-keep-rising-world-reacts-213834036.html