Tag: screening
Two Under Observation At Hospitals After Falling Ill During Flights From Liberia To O’Hare

Two Under Observation At Hospitals After Falling Ill During Flights From Liberia To O’Hare

Chicago Tribune

(MCT) — Two people who arrived at O’Hare International Airport from Liberia have been placed under observation at Chicago hospitals, under the city’s procedures for handling Ebola, after they fell ill during their flights, officials said.
Health officials stressed that “at this time there have been no confirmed cases of Ebola and there is no threat to the general public.”
In fact, the officials said they decided against testing the two for Ebola after initial medical evaluations but did send them to Lurie Children’s Hospital and Rush University Medical Center for observation. They are being kept in isolation.
The two hospitals are among four in Chicago that have agreed to take Ebola patients from other hospitals and health care providers should any cases appear in the area. The others are Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center.
The child had vomited during a flight from Liberia to O’Hare, city health officials said. Upon landing, the child was screened by federal authorities and was found to have no other symptoms and no known risk of exposure. The child was taken to Lurie “out of an abundance of caution” and was undergoing observation in isolation.
Following city guidelines, the child’s family was under quarantine until the evaluation was completed.
The other passenger, an adult traveling alone from Liberia, reported nausea and diarrhea during another flight from Liberia. The passenger reported having been diagnosed with typhoid fever in August but had a normal temperature and reported no known risk of exposure to Ebola during a screening.
The person was taken to Rush for medical evaluation and observation, health officials said.
The city released no other details of the passengers or their flights.

AFP Photo/Jay Directo

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Man Dies Of Ebola In Texas, U.S. Steps Up Airport Screening

Man Dies Of Ebola In Texas, U.S. Steps Up Airport Screening

Washington — A Liberian man who was the first person diagnosed with Ebola outside of West Africa died in a Texas hospital Wednesday, as Washington stepped up airport screening against the deadly virus.

Thomas Eric Duncan died in a Dallas hospital 10 days after he was admitted and despite receiving an experimental drug to fight off the illness, which causes vomiting, diarrhea and often fatal bleeding.

“Mr. Duncan succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola. He fought courageously in this battle,” said a statement from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

Duncan is believed to have been infected with Ebola before he left Liberia and boarded a plane to visit family in Texas.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said there was “zero risk” that he had infected any fellow travelers because he was not symptomatic until days after the flight.

Duncan’s case however raised global fears, leading to a spike of suspected Ebola cases and forcing governments to consider stronger methods of keeping the virus at bay.

The world’s largest outbreak of Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal since the beginning of the year.

Hours after Duncan died, the White House announced that stricter airport screenings would be implemented at five major U.S. airports.

The measures will include sending extra CDC staff to select airports and taking the temperatures of people arriving from Ebola-hit nations.

The “vast majority of people” coming from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — the three countries hit hardest by the epidemic — will be screened, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The airports implementing the measures are John F. Kennedy International in New York, Washington Dulles International, Chicago O’Hare International, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey.

– Spanish fears mount –

In Spain, five people were isolated and dozens more monitored after a nurse in Madrid apparently caught Ebola while treating two elderly missionaries who died of the disease.

The nurse, Teresa Romero, is the first person to contract Ebola outside West Africa.

One of the doctors treating her said she may have caught the deadly virus after touching her face with an infected glove.

“It seems like it was the gloves. The gloves touched the face,” doctor German Ramirez told reporters outside the hospital.

Ebola is transmitted by close contact with the bodily fluids of a person who is showing symptoms of infection such as fever, aches, vomiting and diarrhea, or who has recently died of the infection, experts say.

As Spain scrambled to identify people who came into contact with Romero, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called for calm and promised “transparency” over the scare, which has sparked fierce criticism of Spanish safeguards.

The World Health Organization also moved to calm fears of wider contagion in Europe.

Regional director, Zsuzsanna Jakab, said sporadic cases in Europe were “unavoidable” but the risk of a full outbreak were “extremely low.”

– U.S. urges broader response –

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said more countries must step up the fight against Ebola.

“The fact is more countries can and must step up,” Kerry told reporters after talks with his British counterpart Philip Hammond, warning there were “still not enough countries to make the difference.”

Kerry showed a series of slides showing efforts by individual nations, and highlighting how small countries had in some ways done more per capita than their larger counterparts.

“I’m here this morning to make an urgent plea to countries in the world to step up even further. While we are making progress, we are not where we can say that we need to be,” he said.

Britain unveiled plans to send 750 military personnel as well as a medical ship and three helicopters to Sierra Leone.

“If we get ahead of it, if we rise to the challenge, we can contain it and beat it. We know how to do this,” Hammond said.

MCT Photo/Rodger Mallison/Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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Obama Announces Plans For New Ebola Screening Of Airline Passengers

Obama Announces Plans For New Ebola Screening Of Airline Passengers

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times

The Obama administration is developing additional screening protocols for airline passengers both overseas and in the United States to control infectious diseases such as Ebola, President Barack Obama said Monday.
After meeting with his senior health, homeland security and national security advisers, Obama told reporters that in the wake of the first Ebola case diagnosed in the U.S., officials would study increasing screening plans.
“We’re also going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screening both at the source and here in the United States,” the president said, without offering details. New measures could be announced shortly, an administration official said.
“I consider this a top national security priority,” Obama said.
He spoke after Texas officials said they were making good progress in monitoring those who had been in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas last month. Also Monday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry called for more screening at the borders in the wake of the Duncan case.
At a televised news conference to announce his new 17-member task force to deal with infectious diseases, Perry said federal officials should tighten screening procedures at all U.S. points of entry. Screeners would take travelers’ temperatures and conduct other assessments to determine their overall health.
Duncan did not have a fever when he left Liberia on Sept. 19, but developed symptoms days after arriving in Dallas. He first sought medical care the night of Sept. 25 but was sent home with antibiotics. When his condition worsened on Sept. 28, he was rushed back to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where he is in isolation and in critical but stable condition.
He has been receiving an experimental treatment using the antiviral drug brincidofovir.
In Dallas, Texas Health Commissioner David Lakey told reporters of continuing efforts to monitor those who may have come in contact with Duncan or with his secondary contacts. Lakey said no symptoms have developed among those being monitored, not even among the 10 people considered to be in the high-risk group. Those at high risk include the family and friends who stayed with Duncan at a Dallas apartment when he had symptoms. The low-risk group, mainly those who encountered people in the high-risk group, has 38 people, Lakey said.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said the second phase of the apartment cleanup has been completed, including disposal of most of Duncan’s personal items, which could be infectious.
Meanwhile, a freelance journalist who had been working for NBC News arrived in Omaha, Neb., to be treated for Ebola, which he contracted in Liberia. Ashoka Mukpo was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center, where he will be kept in isolation. Mukpo, who became ill last week, is the fifth American with Ebola to return to the U.S. for treatment during the outbreak.
Mukpo was able to walk off the plane on his own Monday before being loaded onto a stretcher for the ambulance ride to the hospital, his father, Dr. Mitchell Levy, said at a televised news conference. Levy told reporters that his son wanted to help the people of Liberia because he lived there for two years while working with a nonprofit.
It was not known how Mukpo became infected, but Levy said it may have happened when his son helped clean a vehicle in which someone had died.
In Spain, officials announced that a nurse who helped care for two priests infected with Ebola has tested positive for the virus — becoming the first person known to have contracted Ebola outside West Africa. She was described as in stable condition. According to the World Health Organization, more than 3,400 people have died during the current outbreak, the worst on record.

AFP Photo/ Carl de Souza

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