While yesterday's CDC press conference was factual, it was clearly very much designed to avoid panic as time and again the US public was reassured that Ebola in America was 'contained', 'hard to contract', and would 'stop here'. However, as Bloomberg reports [2], the man with Ebola in Dallas was initially sent home from the hospital with antibiotics after seeking treatment for an unknown illness, officials said. We know CDC has stated the need for the US to be prepared but the fact that after the patient sought medical care on Sept. 26 and was sent home with antibiotics, he returned in an ambulance to Texas Health Presbyterian two days later and was admitted, suggests US healthcare workers are not prepared for the possibilities that Ebola is here in America (as this is the 13th possible case in the US).
A man with Ebola in Dallas was initially sent home from the hospital with antibiotics after seeking treatment for an unknown illness, officials said.
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The man is being kept in isolation in an intensive care unit. He had no symptoms when he left Liberia and began to show signs of the disease on Sept. 24, the CDC said. He sought care on Sept. 26, was hospitalized two days later at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and is critically ill, said CDC Director Thomas Frieden.
Do not worry though...
“There is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it here,” Frieden said at a press conference in Atlanta.
The man was traveling to the U.S. to visit family and was staying with them. He was exposed to only a “handful” of people during the time when he had symptoms, including family members and possibly some community members, according to Frieden, who said there was little risk to anyone on his flight.
“Ebola doesn’t spread before someone gets sick, and he didn’t get sick until four days until after he got off the airplane,” Frieden said. “So we don’t believe there was any risk to anyone on the flight at that time.”
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“It’s not a potential of Ebola spreading widely in the U.S.,” Frieden said on a July 31 conference call with reporters. “That is not in the cards.”
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“There shouldn’t be any new infections from this point on,” Osterholm said. “We are going to shut this down.”
Finally...
Another suspected Ebola case is being evaluated at a National Institutes of Health facility, U.S. officials said, the 13th such possible infection in the U.S. All others have tested negative.
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Contained?
