- Forty-three of 48 people no longer at risk of developing virus
- ‘It provides a measure of relief and reassurance’, officials say
The first wave of people who may have had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan have been declared Ebola-free after 21 days of twice-daily temperature checks, bringing welcome news to a Dallas hospital that was sent into a tailspin by the discovery of the virus.
At least 43 of the 48 people who may have come into contact with Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US, are no longer at risk of developing the virus, the Texas department of health announced in a statement Monday. Duncan died from Ebola on 8 October.
“Epidemiologists have worked around the clock to call and visit people who may have had any exposure, to make sure they were asymptotic and doing well,” Texas state health commissioner Dr David Lakey said in a statement.
“I’m happy we can tell people they are free and clear of monitoring. It provides a measure of relief and reassurance.”
The incubation period for Ebola is between two and 21 days after exposure, although symptoms typically develop between days eight and 10.
Duncan’s fiancee, Louise Troh, was among the 43 people cleared for Ebola overnight Sunday, along with her 13-year-old son and two young men who stayed in the apartment where his condition worsened.
After Duncan was diagnosed, Troh and the three young men were quarantined in the apartment where the bedsheets he’d slept on remained. After several days, they were moved into a home donated for three weeks by a member of Wilshire Baptist church, and a clean up crew was sent in to decontaminate the apartment.
“We are so happy this is coming to an end, and we are so grateful that none of us has shown any sign of illness,” Troh said in the statement.
“We have lost so much, but we have our lives and we have our faith in God, which always gives us hope. Even though the quarantine is over, our time of mourning is not over. Because of that, we ask to be given privacy as we seek to rebuild our home, our family and our daily living.”
Troh learned of her fiance’s death from her pastor, George Mason. Upon hearing the news, Troh collapsed in tears, Mason said. He was unable to embrace her because of the quarantine restrictions.
State officials, working with a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), initially identified 48 people who may have had contact with Duncan before he was admitted, including healthcare workers and community members. They were checked twice daily for fever and monitored for other symptoms of the deadly disease.
Those cleared from quarantine are people who could have had contact with Duncan up to 28 September, the day he was brought to the emergency room and isolated. The healthcare workers who treated Duncan after he was diagnosed are still being monitored, and have pledged not to go into public spaces until the end of their 21-day incubation periods. State health officials said about 120 people are being monitored.
Since Duncan’s death, two nurses who treated Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas have been diagnosed. Both have since been moved to speciality care units – one in Maryland and one in Georgia.
One of the infected nurses, Amber Vinson, traveled back and forth to Ohio from Texas, possibly after she began to feel ill. She reported a low-grade fever on the day she flew back from Cleveland to Dallas.
The CDC director, Tom Frieden, said Vinson should not have been allowed to travel while she was being monitored. It was later revealed that Vinson had contacted the CDC before she traveled, and was allowed to fly.
“Suggestions that she ignored any of the physician and government-provided protocols recommended to her are patently untrue and hurtful,” Vinson’s relatives said in a statement. “She has not and would not knowingly expose herself or anyone else,” it added.
A group of passengers aboard one of Vinson’s two Frontier Airlines flights are being monitored for symptoms. Among those are a small group of passengers who sat within a three-foot radius of Vinson on one of the flights, who are deemed to be at a higher risk; they have been directed to stay home.