The fifth American to contract Ebola in West Africa arrived in the United States for treatment yesterday as the first patient diagnosed with the deadly virus on US soil fought for his life at a Dallas hospital, officials said.
A private plane carrying Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman for NBC News who contracted Ebola in Liberia, landed in Omaha and was taken to the Nebraska Medical Centre. The plane was met by an ambulance manned by workers in yellow protective suits, NBC video showed.
Thomas Frieden, director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said yesterday his agency would work “very closely” with the Nebraska hospital, which treated another Ebola patient in recent weeks. “We’ll also make sure that doctors and nurses, the whole team taking care of him, does that in a way that doesn’t put them at risk by providing them with support,” Frieden said, speaking on NBC’s Today programme.
The Nebraska hospital had treated and released Rick Sacra, an American missionary who contracted Ebola in Liberia, last month. Dr Sacra was admitted to UMass Memorial Medical Centre in Worcester, Massachusetts, on Saturday for a likely respiratory infection but tested negative for Ebola, hospital officials said on Sunday. He was being removed from isolation.
We recognise this is a critical time for him and for his family
Meanwhile, Dallas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan remained in critical condition, Frieden said.
“Our hopes and prayers are with him. We recognise this is a critical time for him and for his family,” Frieden said.
Duncan became ill after arriving in Texas from Liberia two weeks ago, heightening concerns that the worst Ebola epidemic on record could spread from West Africa, where it began in March.
Frieden, who was slated to brief President Barack Obama last night, said health officials were closely monitoring 10 people who had direct contact with Duncan and are considered at greatest risk. So far none has shown any symptoms, he added.
Another 38 people who potentially had contact with Duncan are also being tracked, he said. Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.
The US cases come as death toll from the epidemic rises. It has killed more than 3,400 people since it began and has now begun spreading faster, infecting almost 7,500 people so far.
Frieden yesterday emphasised on the importance of rehydration in treating Ebola patients, especially given the lack of available doses of the experimental drug ZMapp, produced by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical.
“We don’t know if ZMapp works, but there’s no more of it now. The company’s working hard to make a few more doses, but it’s hard to make. It takes a long time,” he told NBC.
A second experimental drug, made by Canada’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp, “can be quite difficult for patients to take,” he told CNN on Sunday. He added that the doctor and Duncan’s family would decide whether to prescribe the drug and that the CDC was not yet aware of any experimental drugs being used for him.
The Texas case highlighted problems that US public health officials are trying to address: The hospital that examined him initially did not recognise the deadly disease and sent him home with antibiotics, only to have him return two days later in an ambulance.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said suspending flights to and from affected countries or imposing a visa ban on travellers from those areas should not be done and yesterday said officials continue to look at airport screening.
“All options are going to be looked at,” he told CNN. “The discussion is: Is that extra, added layer of screening going to be worth the resources that are put into doing it?”
But the virus’s 21-day maximum window for symptoms to appear makes it difficult, he said.