patient in a Dallas hospital has been confirmed to have the deadly Ebola virus, the Centers for Disease Control said Tuesday.
That person has been held in "strict isolation" at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas as he was evaluated for possible exposure to the virus. The CDC will decide whether it is necessary to move the patient to another facility.
This is the first-ever case of this strain of Ebola confirmed in the United States. Officials would not confirm or deny if he was a U.S. citizen, only saying he was "visiting family in the U.S."
"There is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a Tuesday afternoon news conference in Atlanta.
According to the CDC, the patient acquired the virus in West Africa, though they are not sure how he was infected. He was not involved in stopping the Ebola outbreak in Africa.
The patient then flew to visit family in the U.S., but Frieden said they will not release the flight number unless the CDC receives additional information that would mean those on the flight were at risk of infection. Frieden said based on the information they have, the patient would not have been at the stage of the virus in which he could transmit it to others at the time of the flight.
Frieden also gave a brief timeline of the patient's infection in his comments Tuesday afternoon. The patient, an adult male, took a flight from Liberia that departed on Sept. 19 and arrived in the U.S. on the 20th. He first showed symptoms of Ebola on Sept. 24, then first sought care on Sept. 26, before he was admitted to the hospital on Sept. 28.
A Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital spokesman said the patient has been in isolation since he arrived on Sunday, and hospital officials had been "meeting for weeks in anticipation of such an event" and has a "robust infection control system" in place.
Dr. Frieden said he believes "a handful" of people had contact with the patient between the 24th and 28th, including family members and "a couple" community members. Those people are to be monitored by the CDC starting Tuesday.
Early symptoms of Ebola include sudden fever, fatigue, and headache. Symptoms may appear anywhere from two to 21 days after exposure.
Frieden said the next steps are to care for the patient and keep to a minimum the chance the virus may spread while identifying all people the patient was in contact with while he could transmit the virus. Those people will be monitored for 21 days and isolated if they develop a fever during that time.
"Contact tracing is something we do day-in and day-out, and something we do well," Frieden said.
Frieden said that others may have been infected in the United States, but said there was "no doubt" in his mind that the infection will be contained to the current patient and anyone they may have had contact with.
State health officials said no other cases are suspected in Texas.
Specimens from the patient were tested by a state lab and confirmed by a separate test by the Centers for Disease Control, said Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/09/29/dallas-presbyterian-hos...
Dallas Ebola patient vomited outside apartment on way to hospital
DALLAS (Reuters) - Two days after he was sent home from a Dallas hospital, the man who is the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States was seen vomiting on the ground outside an apartment complex as he was bundled into an ambulance.
"His whole family was screaming. He got outside and he was throwing up all over the place," resident Mesud Osmanovic, 21, said on Wednesday, describing the chaotic scene before the man was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday where he is in serious condition.
The hospital cited the man's privacy as the reason for not identifying him. However, Gee Melish, who said he was a family friend, identified the man in Texas infected with Ebola as Thomas Eric Duncan.
The New York Times said that Duncan, in his mid-40s, helped transport a pregnant woman suffering from Ebola to a hospital in Liberia, where she was turned away for lack of space. Duncan helped bring the woman back to her family's home and carried her into the house, where she later died, the newspaper reported. Four days later Duncan left for the United States, the Times said, citing the woman's parents and neighbors.
Texas health officials said that up to 18 people, including five children, had contact with the Ebola patient after he traveled to the United States from Liberia in late September. The children had gone to school early this week but have since been sent home and are being monitored for symptoms.
The Dallas Ebola case has prompted national concern over the potential for a wider spread of the deadly virus from West Africa, where at least 3,338 people have died in the worst outbreak on record.
more here ... http://news.yahoo.com/traveler-liberia-first-ebola-patient-diagnosed-u-0...
An infected [ insert fast food joint here ] employee preparing your meal,
or the supermarket stock boy who doesn't realize that he has contracted it yet.
Edit to add - Just when you thought things were bad...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11135883/Ebola-could-bec...
Report: “Disaster Teams Were Notified Months Ago They Would Be Activated in October”
A public tweet from a large government supplier of emergency response products specializing in “high risk events” says that Disaster Assistance Response Teams were told to prepare to be activated in the month of October. The shocking revelation, made on the Goldenstate Fire/EMS Twitter page, suggests that not only did someone know that the Ebola virus would be reaching America, but that they knew exactly when it would happen.
“What we are now hearing is just the tip of the iceburg as we enter October,” noted the company’s Twitter spokesperson. “Ebola virus will cripple EMS and hospitals.”
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/report-disaster-teams-were-told-mo...
There are 20 CDC prepared hospitals in the USA that have quarantine centers. Dallas (Texas), Houston (Texas), and Honolulu (Hawai'i) just happen to be 3 of the 20: http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/pdf/us-quarantine-stations-new.pdf and this is where cases have been reported.
How Bad Could It Get? US Government Order Of 160,000 HazMat Suits Gives A Clue
Now that Ebola is officially in the US on an uncontrolled basis, the two questions on everyone's lips are i) who will get sick next and ii) how bad could it get?
We don't know the answer to question #1 just yet, but when it comes to the second one, a press release three weeks ago from Lakeland Industries, a manufacturer and seller of a "comprehensive line of safety garments and accessories for the industrial protective clothing market" may provide some insight into just how bad the US State Department thinks it may get. Because when the US government buys 160,000 hazmat suits specifically designed against Ebola, just ahead of the worst Ebola epidemic in history making US landfall, one wonders: what do they know the we don't?
read the rest
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-01/how-bad-could-it-get-us-governm...
Any connection between the ebola and children having extreme fevers and paralysis of limbs?
they claim it to be the enterovirus 68 / EV68 a Polio-like virus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterovirus