| Detroit Free Press | - |
DALLAS - Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S., died this morning, according to a spokeswoman for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
He was receiving the same experimental drug being given to the NBC cameraman who is also infected
DALLAS – Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S., died this morning, according to a spokeswoman for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Duncan carried the deadly virus with him from his home in Liberia, though he showed no symptoms when he left for the U.S. He arrived in Dallas Sept. 20 and fell ill several days later. His condition was downgraded during the weekend from serious to critical.
Others in Dallas still are being monitored as health officials try to contain the virus that has ravaged West Africa, with more than 3,400 people reported dead. They also are trying to tamp down anxiety among residents frightened of contracting Ebola, though the disease can be spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an already sick person.
Health officials have identified 10 people, including seven health workers, who had direct contact with Duncan while he was contagious. Another 38 people also may have come into contact with him. The four people living in the northeast Dallas apartment where Duncan stayed have been isolated in a private residence.
"The past week has been an enormous test of our health system, but for one family it has been far more personal … They have our sincere condolences, and we are keeping them in our thoughts, "Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in statement.
"We'll continue every effort to contain the spread of the virus and protect people from this threat," Lakey added.
Officials have said everyone who potentially had contact with Duncan is being monitored for 21 days, the normal incubation period for the disease.
Duncan passed an airport health screening in Liberia, where doctors measured his temperature as normal and found no signs of Ebola symptoms. But a few days after he arrived, he began to have a fever, headache and abdominal pain.
He went to the emergency room of Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas on Sept. 24, but was sent home. By Sept. 28, his condition had worsened and an ambulance took him back to the hospital where he stayed in isolation.
The hospital has changed its explanation several times about when Duncan arrived and what he said about his travel history. It has acknowledged that Duncan told them on his first visit that he came from West Africa.
Meanwhile, American Ebola survivor Kent Brantly has donated blood to a fellow patient for the second time. This time, Brantly, a physician, donated blood to an NBC cameraman who also contracted the virus while working in Liberia.
Although there's no proven therapy or vaccine for Ebola, doctors hope that blood transfusions from survivors will provide current patients with antibodies that will help their immune systems fight off the virus.
The camerman, Ashoka Mukpo, is being treated at a specialized biocontainment unit at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. That's the same hospital that treated physician Richard Sacra, who also received a blood transfusion from Brantly. Both men worked in a hospital in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, where they contracted the virus.
Brantly received a blood transfusion from a teenage Ebola survivor before he left Liberia to be evacuated to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where he and missionary Nancy Writebol were treated.
Mukpo is also receiving an experimental drug called brincidofovir, an antiviral made by North Carolina-based Chimerix that has not yet been tested in animals against Ebola, but which has shown promise in test tube studies.
Duncan, a Liberian citizen, also received brincidofovir, USA TODAY reported.
No comments:
Post a Comment