Texas health officials are closely monitoring people who made contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient to be diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus in the United States.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have announced collaborated efforts with local security and health authorities to trace and monitor all suspected to have come in contact with Duncan.
Reports indicate that Duncan, a Liberian national visiting the US, is believed to have been in close contact with about 12 to 18 people - five of them are reportedly schooling children.
The children, who attend different schools, are being monitored at home. Reports indicate that health officials check the children and adults for symptoms of the virus twice daily. None have been reported sick thus far.
The team of 10 is reportedly seeking to locate and monitor everyone who had contact with the patient in the past four days.
Particular emphasis is being placed on those people Duncan may have meet when he started showing Ebola symptoms.
Reports indicate that Duncan arrived from Liberia on September 20th and showed no signs of the virus during the flight and many days after arriving. He is believed to have been visiting a close family member living in Dallas.
According to reports, on Friday last week, Duncan visited the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital complaining of fever and abdominal discomfort. He is also believed to have told the nurse that he had just arrived from West Africa, specifically Liberia.
The Dallas health facility has since come under scrutiny for negligence. How and why Duncan was discharged after a nurse is believed to have put him through a checklist recently implemented by the hospital to help identity Ebola symptoms has been asked.
Meanwhile, the hospital has apologized for the mix-up. According to Mark C. Lester, an executive with the Texas Health Recourses, the results of the Ebola checklist "was not fully communicated throughout the full team."
" As a result, the full import of that information wasn't factored into the clinical decision-making," he said.
Pundit say Duncan is may have been infected in Liberia after helping carry his landlord's sick daughter to the hospital. She is believed to have died from Ebola sometime later in her house, after been turned away from the hospital.
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