For the first time, someone has been infected with Ebola outside the African continent.
A Spanish nurse who treated a missionary and priest returned from West Africa after contracting the virus has been confirmed to have the same strain of Ebola as the priest.
“We are working in coordination to give the best care to the patient and to guarantee the safety of all citizens,” Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato told reporters on Monday. The nurse, whose name was not released, is reportedly in stable condition.
The woman’s husband and two others have been placed in isolation and at least two dozen others who had close contact with the woman are under observation by health officials. The hospital where she worked is also examining any other health care workers that had contact with the priest.
Worldwide, at least 370 health care workers have been infected with the disease while treating patients connected to this outbreak.
Journalist Ashoka Mukpo, the fifth American known to have the virus, has arrived in Nebraska and is receiving treatment. Mukpo said that he believes he was infected when he was splashed while spray-washing a vehicle where someone had died from Ebola.
The Dallas area infected patient, Eric Duncan, is in critical condition.
A cameraman working for NBC News has tested positive for Ebola while on assignment with the network’s medical reporter.
NBC Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman had a team of three others working with her in Liberia when the cameraman fell ill with a fever. He self-isolated himself until he could be tested for the virus by Doctors Without Borders who confirmed the infection.
He is being flown to the United States for treatment.
Ashoka Mukpo was the second cameraman for Snyderman and had begun working for the network on Tuesday. He had been working in Liberia and posted on his Facebook page about the situation in Liberia.
“Man oh man i have seen some bad things in the last two weeks of my life,” he wrote. “How unpredictable and fraught with danger life can be. How in some parts of the world, basic levels of help and assistance that we take for granted completely don’t exist for many people. The raw coldness of deprivation and the potential for true darkness that exists in the human experience. I hope that humanity can figure out how we can take care of each other and our world.”
Dr. Snyderman says the amount of virus in Mukpo is low and that he should have a good diagnosis.
The man who brought Ebola into the United States could be facing prosecution in Liberia because he apparently lied on exit forms.
Thomas Eric Duncan told the Liberian Airport Authority “no” when he was asked if he has cared for anyone who had Ebola or touched the body of someone who had died from Ebola. Duncan had multiple contacts with a pregnant woman who died of the killer virus.
“The fact that he knew [he was exposed to Ebola] and he left the country is unpardonable, quite frankly,” Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told reporters. “I just hope that nobody else gets infected.”
“With the U.S. doing so much to help us fight Ebola, and again one of our compatriots didn’t take due care, and so, he’s gone there and … put some Americans in a state of fear, and put them at some risk,” she continued. “I feel very saddened by that and very angry with him, to tell you the truth.”
Duncan was not symptomatic when he came to the United States and fell ill days after he arrived in Texas.
The CDC has released a statement saying that Duncan was not symptomatic during his flights to the United States and that passengers on the flight were not at risk for Ebola. However, the airlines are reportedly contacting anyone who was on the flights for their own precautions.
Concerns about the health care system in Dallas is coming into question following reports that the confirmed Ebola patient was sent home initially from the hospital and was seen throwing up outside all over a common area of the apartment complex where he had been staying.
“His whole family was screaming. He got outside and he was throwing up all over the place,” resident Mesud Osmanovic, 21, said on Wednesday to Reuters.
The man, who has been identified by a family friend as Thomas Eric Duncan, reportedly helped transport a pregnant woman who suffered from Ebola to a hospital in Liberia before boarding a flight to the United States. The woman was turned away from the hospital due to lack of space and Duncan transported her back to the family home where she died.
Texas health officials initially said 18 people had contact with the man but now reports say as many as 80 are under observation because of possible contact.
Hospital officials admitted when the man first came into a hospital on Thursday and was then sent home with antibiotics he had told a nurse that he had traveled to West Africa.
“Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full teams. As a result, the full import of that information wasn’t factored into the full decision making,” Texas hospital official Mark Lester said.
The head of the U.N.’s Ebola response says that unless it’s brought under control quickly, the risk is growing likely the virus will mutate and become airborne.
Anthony Banbury said it would be a “nightmare” scenario if the virus were to mutate within new hosts to become airborne.
“The longer it moves around in human hosts in the virulent melting pot that is West Africa, the more chances increase that it could mutate,” Banbury told the London Daily Mail. “It is a nightmare scenario, and unlikely [now], but it can’t be ruled out.”
Banbury also said it was the worst situation he’s ever seen.
“In a career working in these kinds of situations, wars, natural disasters – I have never seen anything as serious or dangerous or high risk as this one.”
The fears of the UN head come as Texas officials admit at least 80 people have been taken into quarantine because of contact with the confirmed Ebola patient in a Dallas area hospital.
The situation the President described as “unlikely” and officials at the CDC doubted would happen has come true.
The first American case of Ebola has been confirmed.
“We received in our laboratory today specimens from the individual, tested them and they tested positive for Ebola,” Dr. Tom Frieden of the CDC said. “The State of Texas also operates a laboratory that found the same results.”
The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed that a Liberian man who came to the United States to visit relatives tested positive for the virus. He arrived in the U.S. on September 20th but did not show symptoms until four days later. He went to a hospital on Friday and was admitted on Sunday.
Dr. Frieden said that he is certain there will be no major outbreak.
“It does not spread from someone who doesn’t have fever and other symptoms,” Frieden outlined. “So, it’s only someone who is sick with Ebola who can spread the disease. I have no doubt that we will control or contain this case of Ebola so it does not spread throughout the country.”
The Centers for Disease Control is laying out the case for a very grim start to the new year.
The CDC says that as little as 550,000 and up to 1.4 million people could be infected with Ebola by the start of the new year if it is not contained. The World Health Organization says that so far they only have 5,800 confirmed cases and 2,800 deaths, but admit there could be cases in rural areas that are not reported to health care officials.
The CDC report says that currently cases in Liberia are doubling every 15-20 days and doubling in Guinea & Sierra Leone every 30 to 40 days.
The CDC admits their scenario does not take into account the 3,000 troops and medical personnel that President Obama is sending to the region to attempt to control the spread of the killer virus.
The CDC also said that if 70 percent of patients are cared for in proper medical facilities the epidemic can be contained.
The WHO also released a report showing that 337 healthcare workers have been infected with the virus while helping victims and 181 of them have died.
Doctors treating an American doctor who rushed to Liberia to assist after two previous American health workers were infected with Ebola say his condition is stable but it’s too early to say if he will recover.
Dr. Rick Sacra is in isolation at Nebraska Medical Center and is described as “very tired and stable.”
“We are encouraged by what we see, but it’s too early to say he has turned a corner,” Dr. Phil Smith told Fox News. Dr. Smith said that Sacra is being treated with an experimental drug that is different than the ZMapp given to two previous American victims of the virus.
Dr. Smith also said that Dr. Sacra, while still very sick, has been keenly observing his condition and vital signs and is giving tips on the best way to provide his treatment.
Dr. Sacra’s family was able to visit with him through a video link for almost half an hour.
“He asked for something to eat and had a little chicken soup,” Debbie Sacra said in a statement.
The doctor had been serving with the Christian missionary outfit SIM, the same organization that previous victim Nancy Writebol had been working with in Liberia.
The fight against Ebola is now considered such a world threat that the U.S. military is becoming involved in the containment of the West African outbreak.
President Obama has said the outbreak is now “a serious national security concern.”
“We’re going to have to get U.S. military assets just to set up, for example, isolation units and equipment there,” the President said, “to provide security for public health workers surging from around the world.”
The move will allow the military to provide containment units, medical supplies and other advice to health officials on the ground in Liberia and other nations where the virus is running rampant.
Military officials say they will be working closely with Doctors Without Borders.
West African nations are stepping up to offer infrastructure to aid organizations and military relief efforts. Ghana said they would make their international airport in Accra an “air bridge” for Ebola response.
The U.N. says that $600 million will be needed at the bare minimum to stop the virus.
An American doctor who became infected with the Ebola virus while working at an OB/GYN clinic in Liberia has been flown to Nebraska for treatment.
Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, is going to be held in a special isolation unit on the seven floor of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The unit is the largest of four such units in the United States.
Dr. Sacra is from the Boston area and went to Liberia after the two other American medical missionaries became ill from the virus. He worked with the Christian charity SIM, the same group that infected nurse Nancy Writebol had served with before her infection with the virus.
The media was screened from Dr. Sacra as he was brought to the hospital about 40 minutes after leading at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha.
A team of 35 doctors, nurses and medical staff will be providing Dr. Sacra with substantive care including keeping him hydrated and vital signs stable.
Because the experimental drug ZMapp is not available, there are discussions about using blood serum from one of the other Americans who has recovered from the virus in an attempt to introduce antibodies in the system.
