1st October, 2014
Health officials in Texas on Wednesday scoured the Dallas area for people, including schoolchildren, who came in contact with a Liberian man who was diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
Hospital officials admitted that more people may have been exposed to the contagious man after he first sought treatment on September 25, because an apparent miscommunication among staff resulted in his release back into the open community.
Ebola is spread through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, and can only be transmitted when a patient is showing symptoms like fever, aches, bleeding, vomiting or diarrhea.
The man flew from Liberia, the hardest hit nation in West Africa’s deadly Ebola outbreak, and arrived in Texas on September 20 to visit family. He fell ill on September 24.
He went to the hospital on September 25 but was sent home because the medical team “felt clinically it was a low-grade common viral disease,” said Mark Lester, executive vice president of Texas Health Resources.
“He volunteered that he had traveled from Africa in response to the nurse operating the checklist and asking that question,” Lester added.
“Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full team.”
A hospital statement issued later in the day said his initial symptoms on September 25 were “low-grade fever and abdominal pain,” and that “his condition did not warrant admission.”
He even came in contact with schoolchildren before he returned via ambulance to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on September 28, and was placed in strict isolation.
“I know that parents are being extremely concerned about that development,” said Texas Governor Rick Perry.
“These children have been identified and they are being monitored and the disease cannot be transmitted before having any symptoms.”
The patient is currently in serious but stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.