CDC team heading to Dallas now

Dallas County health officials: CDC team headed to Dallas

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Published: 29 September 2014 11:20 PM

Updated: 30 September 2014 11:30 AM


Stockdale: Positive Ebola test would be no cause for panic


CDC projects 1.4 million Ebola cases by Jan. 20 if disease is unchecked


Dallas County health officials on Tuesday told Dallas County commissioners that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is dispatching a team to Dallas in case a patient at a local hospital tests positive for Ebola.

The report was delivered to commissioners after Health and Human Services officials cut short a presentation on the threat of an Ebola outbreak for a conference call with the CDC. Officials said the CDC team would lead the response if test results expected today come back positive for a patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas.

In their presentation prior to the CDC call, health department officials sought to downplay the threat of a local outbreak. Health officials told commissioners that they had already begun an investigation to reach out to people who had been in contact with the patient. Officials said the patient had recently visited West Africa and didn't exhibit symptoms until soon after "arriving home."

Christopher Perkins, medical director for the health department, reminded commissioners that Ebola isn't transmitted through the air -- it is passed through contact with blood or other bodily fluids. Officials also assured residents that the local situation is nowhere near as dire as in West Africa.

"In general, the threat is minimal to the citizens of Dallas County," Perkins said.

All hospitals in Dallas County are prepared to halt the spread of infectious disease, health officials said. And there are no shortages of supplies, such as gloves, to protect people working with patients.

"Dallas County Health and Human Services has been planning for disease emergence for years," said the department's director, Zachary Thompson.

Thompson later added: "This is not Africa. We have a great public health infrastructure to deal with this type of disease."

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas disclosed in a written statement Monday evening that a patient had been placed in “strict isolation” after the person’s symptoms and recent travel history raised concerns.

The name of the patient and other details were not released.

The hospital said it was following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to ensure the safety of patients, staff members and visitors.

No Ebola cases have been confirmed in the United States, though several aid workers who contracted the disease in West Africa have returned to the U.S. for treatment.

Last month, patients in Sacramento and New York City were isolated because of concerns they’d contracted the disease, but they tested negative for the virus.

Specimens from such patients are delivered to the CDC in Atlanta for testing that takes 24 to 48 hours.

There have been more than 6,500 cases of the disease in Africa, and more than 3,000 deaths have been linked to it, according to the World Health Organization. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been hit the hardest.

Ebola has killed up to 90 percent of those it has infected, but the death rate in this outbreak is closer to 60 percent because of early treatment. The virus spreads through direct contact with blood, organs or other bodily fluids and with surfaces contaminated with the fluids.

Early signs of Ebola such as fever, diarrhea and vomiting can develop within two days of infection. There is no specific treatment, but doctors can provide fluids and pain relief before symptoms become severe. Death occurs from profuse internal and external bleeding that starves the organs of blood.

Dr. Kent Brantly, a Fort Worth physician who contracted the virus in July while doing relief work in Africa, was treated at an Atlanta hospital. He was discharged in August after nearly three weeks of care.

He and another American aid worker, Nancy Writebol, received an experimental treatment called ZMapp. It’s unknown whether the drug helped or whether they improved on their own.

On Sunday, an American doctor who was exposed to the Ebola virus while volunteering in Sierra Leone was admitted to an isolation unit at a hospital at the National Institutes of Health near Washington, D.C.

Another aid worker who contracted Ebola while volunteering in West Africa also remains hospitalized.

The World Health Organization was first notified of the latest Ebola outbreak in March, but investigations have revealed that it began in December.

Outbreaks have occurred in Central Africa since the 1970s, but this is the first in West Africa and the largest outbreak in history.

Staff writers Matthew Watkins Claire Z. Cardona and Sherry Jacobson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

That is what I was thinking. To send them before results were out seems they believe or know more than what is being said.

It appears we were all right. Sometimes you have to wonder if this is something TPTB want. When they sent the doctors back my wife asked why would they take such a risk? I said it would be very profitable in the end. But how many would die? Maybe the people that believe there is a population reduction in the works are on to something.