Ebola family under armed guard after trying to leave quarantine
Setting the stage for an epidemic: a pea-brained negro without a protective biohazard suit delivers supplies to Ebola patient Thomas Duncan's quarantined family in Dallas.
A woman who has been confined to her Dallas apartment under armed guard after a man infected with Ebola stayed at her home said she never imagined this could happen to her so far from disease-ravaged West Africa.
Louise Troh said Thursday that she is tired of being locked up and wants health authorities to decontaminate her home.
Authorities say the circle of people in the US possibly exposed to Ebola widened after the man, who arrived from Liberia last month, was discharged from a hospital without being tested for the deadly virus.
The confinement order, which also bans visitors, was imposed after the family failed to comply with a request to stay home, according to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. Texas Health Commissioner David Lakey said the order would ensure that Troh, her 13-year-old son and two nephews can be closely monitored for signs of the disease.
The first Ebola diagnosis in the nation has raised concerns about whether the disease that has killed 3,300 people in West Africa could spread in the US. Federal health officials say they are confident they can keep it in check.
Thomas Eric Duncan, the first confirmed case of Ebola in the US
Troh said she had imagined she would be safe from the grasp of the virus thousands of miles from her native Liberia, the worst-hit country.
“No one thinks this will happen,” she said in an interview with the Associated Press. She said she and her family are “stressed” about being confined to their home.
“Who wants to be locked up?” she said. Private security guards and sheriff’s deputies blocked the entrance to the 300-unit apartment complex to dozens of reporters.
Troh was waiting for health officials to collect the bedsheets and towels that Thomas Eric Duncan used when he stayed at her home before his Ebola diagnosis.
A hazardous materials crew arrived to decontaminate the apartment Thursday evening but didn’t have the required permits to clean and remove hazardous waste, city spokesman Richard Hill said. The crew, contracted by the county and state, was to return Friday to complete the job. The family must be relocated before the cleanup can begin, Hill said.
“The challenges are real,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked about Troh’s situation. But, he said, “I am confident that we will get it sorted out today.”
He was asked on NBC’s “Today” show why the apartment wasn’t immediately cleaned.
The Ivy Apartments, where Duncan stayed in Dallas
and where four people have been quarantined inside their home
Boxes of food from the Texas Food Bank and Red Cross sit outside the apartment of a quarantined resident
None has shown symptoms, but they have been told to notify medical workers if they feel ill, said Erikka Neroes, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services agency.
The at-risk group includes 12 to 18 people who had direct contact with the infected man, including an ambulance crew and a handful of schoolchildren, she said. The others came into contact with that core group.
“This is a big spider web” of people, Neroes said.
The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — of an infected person who is showing symptoms. Those fluids must also have an entry point.
Ebola dried on surfaces can survive for several hours, according to the CDC. For example, people might get infected by handling soiled clothing or bedsheets and then touching their mouth, or if they are not wearing gloves while doing those tasks and have a cut on their hand.
Duncan’s neighbors in the Liberian capital believe he became infected when he helped a sick pregnant neighbor a few weeks ago. It was not clear if he had learned of the woman’s diagnosis before traveling.
Nonetheless, Liberian authorities announced plans to prosecute Duncan when he returns, accusing him of lying about not having any contact with an infected person.
Duncan filled out a form Sept. 19 about his health and activities before leaving for Dallas. Among the questions on the form, obtained by the Associated Press, one asked whether Duncan had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of anyone who had died in an area affected by Ebola. He answered no to all the questions.
“We expect people to do the honorable thing,” said Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the board of directors of the Liberia Airport Authority in Monrovia.
Frieden on Friday dismissed suggestions that people traveling from West Africa should not be allowed into the US.
A health worker leaves a wheelbarrow with a woman suspected of suffering from Ebola
outside a treatment center in Monrovia.
Duncan arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and fell ill a few days later. An emergency room sent Duncan home last week, even though he told a nurse he had been in West Africa.
In a statement emailed late Thursday, the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said it followed communicable disease protocols by asking Duncan if he had come into contact with anyone who was ill, to which he replied he had not. His symptoms included a temperature of 100.1 F, abdominal pain, a headache and decreased urination, the hospital said. He said he had no nausea, vomiting or diarrhea, and, based on that, the hospital decided to release him.
He returned to the hospital two days later and has been kept in isolation there since Sunday. He was listed Thursday in serious but stable condition.
Also late Thursday, NBC News reported that an American freelance cameraman working for the network in Liberia has tested positive for the virus and will be flown back to the United States along with the rest of the NBC News crew.
Liberia is one of the three countries hit hardest in the epidemic, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea.
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