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Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital secured an entire 24-bed intensive care unit to care for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who succumbed to Ebola on Wednesday and has been the first and only person to be diagnosed with the virus in the United States.
In a statement on Thursday, the Dallas hospital said that it dedicated a team of more than 50 people to the care of Mr. Duncan. Before his condition deteriorated, he had requested not to be resuscitated.
Mr. Duncan was also the first person to receive the investigational antiviral drug Brincidofovir. ZMapp has not been available since August 12, and his blood type was not compatible with available serum donors, the hospital said.
Also on Wednesday, a sheriff’s deputy who had been inside Mr. Duncan’s residence began showing some symptoms and was quickly isolated. His test results came back negative, Texas health officials reported Thursday.
Federal officials stepped up their efforts on Wednesday by announcing entry screening at five airports that receive the majority of travelers from the three affected West African countries.
“The most important place to take care of screening is at the point of departure,” said Health & Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell at a news conference on Thursday.
“Next step is having a system that can handle any case that we have. We’ve had one case, and there may be other cases, and we have to recognized that as a nation,” she said.
“We know how to contain [the virus], and that is detect, contact tracing, isolation, and treatment,” said Ms. Burwell, who has been involved in at least one meeting a day on Ebola since end of July.
At a World Bank conference on Thursday, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden compared the Ebola outbreak to the AIDS epidemic and said that more trained staff, laboratories, and infection control are needed in the three affected countries to prevent the virus from spreading.
So far there have been more than 8,000 Ebola cases, including 3,865 deaths, the majority of which have been in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
A trial for an Ebola vaccine has begun in Mali, according to an NBC news report.
The House Democrats, meanwhile, are urging the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriation Subcommittee to convene a hearing on “emergent public health threats” posed by Ebola and enterovirus D68.
“Since Congress left Washington last month – the earliest we have recessed in over 50 years – the Ebola virus has found its way onto American soil and enterovirus D68 has reached almost every state and is linked to the deaths of multiple children. The House Appropriations Committee has not heard publicly from the CDC or the NIH since March, and we need to independently assess their response to these critical public health crises,” they wrote to the subcommittee chairman, Jack Kingston.
The first case of human-to-human transmission of the Ebola virus outside of Africa was confirmed earlier this week in Spain, and there have been other unconfirmed reports in Europe. The World Health Organization is not recommending any travel or trade restrictions by countries, except for confirmed or suspected cases.
--Alicia Ault contributed to this report.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital secured an entire 24-bed intensive care unit to care for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who succumbed to Ebola on Wednesday and has been the first and only person to be diagnosed with the virus in the United States.
In a statement on Thursday, the Dallas hospital said that it dedicated a team of more than 50 people to the care of Mr. Duncan. Before his condition deteriorated, he had requested not to be resuscitated.
Mr. Duncan was also the first person to receive the investigational antiviral drug Brincidofovir. ZMapp has not been available since August 12, and his blood type was not compatible with available serum donors, the hospital said.
Also on Wednesday, a sheriff’s deputy who had been inside Mr. Duncan’s residence began showing some symptoms and was quickly isolated. His test results came back negative, Texas health officials reported Thursday.
Federal officials stepped up their efforts on Wednesday by announcing entry screening at five airports that receive the majority of travelers from the three affected West African countries.
“The most important place to take care of screening is at the point of departure,” said Health & Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell at a news conference on Thursday.
“Next step is having a system that can handle any case that we have. We’ve had one case, and there may be other cases, and we have to recognized that as a nation,” she said.
“We know how to contain [the virus], and that is detect, contact tracing, isolation, and treatment,” said Ms. Burwell, who has been involved in at least one meeting a day on Ebola since end of July.
At a World Bank conference on Thursday, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden compared the Ebola outbreak to the AIDS epidemic and said that more trained staff, laboratories, and infection control are needed in the three affected countries to prevent the virus from spreading.
So far there have been more than 8,000 Ebola cases, including 3,865 deaths, the majority of which have been in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
A trial for an Ebola vaccine has begun in Mali, according to an NBC news report.
The House Democrats, meanwhile, are urging the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriation Subcommittee to convene a hearing on “emergent public health threats” posed by Ebola and enterovirus D68.
“Since Congress left Washington last month – the earliest we have recessed in over 50 years – the Ebola virus has found its way onto American soil and enterovirus D68 has reached almost every state and is linked to the deaths of multiple children. The House Appropriations Committee has not heard publicly from the CDC or the NIH since March, and we need to independently assess their response to these critical public health crises,” they wrote to the subcommittee chairman, Jack Kingston.
The first case of human-to-human transmission of the Ebola virus outside of Africa was confirmed earlier this week in Spain, and there have been other unconfirmed reports in Europe. The World Health Organization is not recommending any travel or trade restrictions by countries, except for confirmed or suspected cases.
--Alicia Ault contributed to this report.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital secured an entire 24-bed intensive care unit to care for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who succumbed to Ebola on Wednesday and has been the first and only person to be diagnosed with the virus in the United States.
In a statement on Thursday, the Dallas hospital said that it dedicated a team of more than 50 people to the care of Mr. Duncan. Before his condition deteriorated, he had requested not to be resuscitated.
Mr. Duncan was also the first person to receive the investigational antiviral drug Brincidofovir. ZMapp has not been available since August 12, and his blood type was not compatible with available serum donors, the hospital said.
Also on Wednesday, a sheriff’s deputy who had been inside Mr. Duncan’s residence began showing some symptoms and was quickly isolated. His test results came back negative, Texas health officials reported Thursday.
Federal officials stepped up their efforts on Wednesday by announcing entry screening at five airports that receive the majority of travelers from the three affected West African countries.
“The most important place to take care of screening is at the point of departure,” said Health & Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell at a news conference on Thursday.
“Next step is having a system that can handle any case that we have. We’ve had one case, and there may be other cases, and we have to recognized that as a nation,” she said.
“We know how to contain [the virus], and that is detect, contact tracing, isolation, and treatment,” said Ms. Burwell, who has been involved in at least one meeting a day on Ebola since end of July.
At a World Bank conference on Thursday, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden compared the Ebola outbreak to the AIDS epidemic and said that more trained staff, laboratories, and infection control are needed in the three affected countries to prevent the virus from spreading.
So far there have been more than 8,000 Ebola cases, including 3,865 deaths, the majority of which have been in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
A trial for an Ebola vaccine has begun in Mali, according to an NBC news report.
The House Democrats, meanwhile, are urging the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriation Subcommittee to convene a hearing on “emergent public health threats” posed by Ebola and enterovirus D68.
“Since Congress left Washington last month – the earliest we have recessed in over 50 years – the Ebola virus has found its way onto American soil and enterovirus D68 has reached almost every state and is linked to the deaths of multiple children. The House Appropriations Committee has not heard publicly from the CDC or the NIH since March, and we need to independently assess their response to these critical public health crises,” they wrote to the subcommittee chairman, Jack Kingston.
The first case of human-to-human transmission of the Ebola virus outside of Africa was confirmed earlier this week in Spain, and there have been other unconfirmed reports in Europe. The World Health Organization is not recommending any travel or trade restrictions by countries, except for confirmed or suspected cases.
--Alicia Ault contributed to this report.
