After hospital officials on Saturday said the condition of the lone Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. has worsened, the woman he came to Texas to visit said she is praying for his recovery.
Louise Troh said that she was not aware until a reporter told her that Thomas Eric Duncan's condition had been deemed critical and that she had not spoken with him Saturday.
"I pray in Jesus' name that it will be all right," Troh said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press from the home where she and three others are being isolated.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas didn't provide any further details or respond to questions about Duncan's health on Saturday. The hospital has previously said Duncan, who was being kept in isolation, was in serious but stable condition.
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Duncan traveled from disease-ravaged Liberia to Dallas last month before he began showing symptoms of the disease that has killed some 3,400 people in West Africa.
Duncan's nephew, Joseph Weeks, says he is on a ventilator at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
Concerns About Contact
Meanwhile, new numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were released Saturday. CDC Director Tom Frieden said 114 people in all were investigated for possible contact with Duncan, but only nine were found to have direct contact with him while he was sick, and 40 other people were identified as possibly having contact with him.
Frieden revealed Saturday some of those 50 people now being monitored are patients who rode in the Dallas Fire Rescue ambulance after Duncan Sunday.
“That group of 50 does include some individuals who traveled in the ambulance after the index patient,” Frieden said. “And, after we reviewed with the ambulance staff all of the details there, we couldn’t be 100 percent certain that other people in that ambulance, subsequent patients, may not have been exposed.”
County and state leaders offered prayers for Duncan and those now under careful watch.
“The people being monitored are real people too who need your prayers and are handling this in a very brave way,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
Jenkins said a woman and three males in the apartment where Duncan was staying at The Ivy Apartment in Dallas were monitored from their new living arrangements provided by a member of the faith-based community.
“Louise and those other three individuals who have not been identified are brave good people who are concerned about the public health and are obviously concerned about their own health,” Jenkins said.
Monitoring of Others
So far none of the people being monitored is showing symptoms of Ebola. They will be watched for 21 days for any signs of the virus, and even then a public health threat is not ruled over until two full incubation periods have passed or 42 days, according to Frieden. NBC DFW also learned the 21 day incubation period is being calculated from the day of last possible contact or the day Duncan was placed into isolation, Sunday Sept. 28th.
“The first case of Ebola is both scary and unprecedented,” Frieden said, “Ebola is a deadly disease and we know that the images from Africa remind us all of the severity that Ebola can cause in a community.”
Copyright AP - Associated Press
