Dozens Declared Free of Ebola Risk in Texas

By MANNY FERNANDEZ and KEVIN SACK OCT. 19, 2014



At Summa Akron City Hospital, Sheri Eichorn, left, and Debbi Anders, both nurses, practiced their response to an Ebola case in Akron, Ohio. CreditDustin Franz for The New York Times


DALLAS — At least one chapter of the Ebola saga neared a close here Sunday, as most of the dozens of people who had direct or indirect contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola here, had been told by officials that they were no longer at risk of contracting the disease.

Mr. Duncan’s fiancée, Louise Troh, who nursed him in their cramped apartment while he suffered from diarrhea and who was put under state-ordered quarantine, was set to be declared Ebola-free by officials at the end of Sunday. So, too, were the paramedics who drove an ailing Mr. Duncan to a hospital and health care workers who drew or processed his blood. And a mandatory quarantine was lifted for a homeless man who later rode in the same ambulance as Mr. Duncan before it was disinfected.

The 21-day monitoring period ended Sunday and Monday for nearly all the roughly 50 people. It concludes as federal health officials are tightening the guidelines for the protective gear worn by health care workers treating Ebola patients.

When Did Ebola Arrive and Spread at a Dallas Hospital?

Timelines of the three people in Dallas who have been diagnosed with Ebola. Full Q. and A. »

High risk period when
Pham and Vinson
were treating Duncan.

Thomas Eric Duncan




Fri.

Sat.

Nina Pham


Sept. 19

20

Amber Joy Vinson

Leaves
Liberia.

Arrives
in Dallas.

Sun.

Mon.

Tue.

Wed.

Thu.

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Develops
symptoms.

Visits
hospital.

28

29

30

Oct. 1

2

3

4

Returns
to hospital.

Ebola test
confirmed.

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Flies to
Cleveland.

Ebola test
confirmed.

Dies.

12

13

14

15

Flies back
to Dallas.

Ebola test
confirmed.

RELATED COVERAGE



Two nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who treated Mr. Duncan — Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson — have contracted Ebola. Although officials have not determined how they became infected, they have focused on their use of personal protective gear. In an appearance on Sunday on the news talk show “Meet the Press,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the federal National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said new federal guidelines for hospitals will be issued requiring personal protective equipment that completely covers all parts of the skin. He said the previous recommendations were based on a World Health Organization protocol designed for treating people in Africa and not for American hospital settings.

“It became clear that we needed to modify that protocol where no part of the body is exposed,” Dr. Fauci said.

At the Pentagon, officials announced they were forming a 30-person military medical team to respond to any additional Ebola cases in the United States and “provide short-notice assistance to civilian medical professionals.” Relatives of Ms. Vinson, one of the nurses treated, released a statement Sunday that said she was cleared to travel by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before her Oct. 10 flight from Dallas to Cleveland, and by Dallas County health officials before her Oct. 13 return flight from Cleveland to Dallas. Before boarding her return flight, she reported her temperature three times, and each time was cleared to fly, her family said.

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C., had publicly stated that because Ms. Vinson was being monitored, she should not have boarded the return flight, although it later became clear the agency had allowed her to fly.

“Suggestions that she ignored any of the physician and government-provided protocols recommended to her are patently untrue and hurtful,” the statement read. “She has not and would not knowingly expose herself or anyone else,” it added.

In a statement, Ms. Troh expressed relief that the Ebola threat in the Texas cases was drawing to a close, but sadness over the death of Mr. Duncan.

“We are so happy this is coming to an end, and we are so grateful that none of us has shown any sign of illness,” Ms. Troh said in the statement. “We have lost so much, but we have our lives and we have our faith in God, which always gives us hope. Even though the quarantine is over, our time of mourning is not over. Because of that, we ask to be given privacy as we seek to rebuild our home, our family and our daily living.”

Ms. Troh — along with her 13-year-old son, Timothy, and the two young men who shared the apartment with her and Mr. Duncan — were removed from the contaminated apartment several days after Mr. Duncan was hospitalized. They were moved to a residence provided by a local benefactor. Local leaders and Ms. Troh’s pastor, the Rev. George Mason, had been looking for a place for them to move but had trouble finding a landlord willing to rent to them. They appeared to have found a single-family rental home for them to move into temporarily. Their old apartment was gutted, and many of their personal belongings were incinerated. “What she wants more than anything else is to get out of there with those boys and, in her language, be an American,” the pastor said. “She’s an American and she wants to live her life and be respected because she’s done nothing wrong.”

An unnamed Dallas philanthropist plans to donate tens of thousands of dollars to Ms. Troh, the officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/us...-mistakes.html