Four people close to the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States were quarantined in a Dallas apartment where sheets and other items used by the man were sealed in plastic bags as health officials widened their search for people who had direct or indirect contact with him.
Health officials said on Thursday that 12 to 18 people had direct contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, who flew to Texas from Liberia via Brussels and Washington two weeks ago, and they in turn had contact with scores of others.
Up to 100 people have been contacted and a handful were being monitored, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
(…)
In Liberia, the head of the country’s airport authority, Binyah Kesselly, said the government could prosecute Duncan for denying he had contact with someone who was eventually diagnosed with Ebola.
The government said Duncan failed to declare that he helped neighbor Marthalene Williams after she fell critically ill on Sept. 15. Williams died.
Kesselly said Duncan was asked in a questionnaire whether he had come in contact with any Ebola victim or was showing any symptoms. “To all of these questions, Mr. Duncan answered ’no,’” Kesselly said.
(…)
Duncan initially sought treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on the night of Sept. 25 but was sent back to the apartment, with antibiotics, despite telling a nurse he had just been in Liberia. By Sunday [28], he needed an ambulance to return to the same hospital after vomiting on the ground outside the apartment complex.
He was in serious condition on Thursday [Oct. 2], no change from Wednesday, a hospital spokeswoman said.
