Family confined to home under guard

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This article was published 03/10/2014 (4263 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DALLAS — Four members of a family the U.S. Ebola patient was staying with were confined to their Texas home under armed guard Thursday as the circle of people possibly exposed to the virus widened and Liberian authorities said they would prosecute the man for allegedly lying on an airport questionnaire.

The unusual confinement order was made after the family was “non-compliant” with a request not to leave their apartment, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.

Texas State Health Commissioner David Lakey said the confinement would help ensure the relatives can be closely watched, including checking them for fevers over the next three weeks.

“We didn’t have the confidence we would have been able to monitor them the way that we needed to,” he said.

Several days of food have been delivered to the apartment. The family will not be allowed to receive visitors, officials said.

Officials were concerned about the cleanliness of the home and hired a cleaning service to come, Lakey said.

“The house conditions need to be improved,” he said.

The infected man’s belongings, including clothes and possibly bedsheets, are bagged inside the home so the family cannot come into contact with them until they are removed, Jenkins said.

Elsewhere, Texas health officials expanded their efforts to contain the virus, reaching out to about 80 people who may have had direct contact with Thomas Eric Duncan or someone close to him.

None of the people is showing symptoms, but public-health officials have educated them about Ebola and told them to notify medical workers if they begin to feel ill, Erikka Neroes, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services agency, said Thursday.

The group will be monitored to see if anyone seeks medical care during the three weeks immediately following the time of contact, Neroes said.

The 80 people include 12 to 18 who came in direct contact with the infected man, as well as others known to have had contact with them, she said.

“This is a big spiderweb” of people involved, Neroes said.

The initial group includes three members of the ambulance crew that took Duncan to the hospital, plus a handful of schoolchildren.

The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through close contact with someone who has symptoms. People have to come into direct contact with the patient’s bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — and those fluids must have an entry point.

For example, people might get infected by handling soiled clothing or bedsheets and then touching their nose, mouth or eyes, or if they are not wearing gloves while doing those tasks and have a cut on their hand.

“If you sit next to someone on the bus, you’re not exposed,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said.

In Liberia, authorities announced plans to prosecute Duncan, alleging he lied on a form about not having any contact with an infected person.

Duncan filled out a series of questions about his health and activities before leaving on his journey to Dallas. On a Sept. 19 form obtained by The Associated Press, he answered no to all of them.

Among other questions, the form asked whether Duncan had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of anyone who had died in an area affected by Ebola.

“We expect people to do the honourable thing,” said Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the board of directors of the Liberia Airport Authority in Monrovia. The agency took the case to the Ministry of Justice, which will formally prosecute it.

Neighbours in the Liberian capital believe Duncan became infected when he helped bundle a sick, pregnant neighbour into a taxi a few weeks ago and set off with her to find treatment.

The case has raised questions about whether a disease that has killed 3,300 people in West Africa could spread in the United States. U.S. health officials say they remain confident they can keep it in check.

Duncan arrived in Dallas Sept. 20 to visit the family and fell ill a few days later. His sister, Mai Wureh, identified him as the infected man in an interview with The Associated Press.

A Dallas emergency room sent Duncan home last week, even though he told a nurse he had been in disease-ravaged West Africa. The decision by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital to release him could have put others at risk of exposure to Ebola before he went back to the ER a couple of days later when his condition worsened.

The man has been kept in isolation at the hospital since Sunday. He was listed Thursday in serious but stable condition.

 

— The Associated Press