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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : October 3, 2014 10:47 AM IST
Family members of the Dallas Ebola patient have been ordered by the Dallas County judge Clay Jenkins to stay indoor, after they failed to comply with a request to not leave the apartment. Since the confinement order is imposed on them, the family members are staying home under armed guard as the circle of people possibly exposed to the virus widened, while Liberian authorities said they would prosecute the man for allegedly lying on an airport questionnaire.
Texas State Health Commissioner David Lakey said the order would help ensure the four can be closely watched, including checking them for fevers over the next three weeks. 'We didn't have the confidence we would have been able to monitor them the way that we needed to,' he said. The family will not be allowed to receive visitors, officials said. Authorities were also concerned about the cleanliness of the home and hired a cleaning service, Lakey said. 'The house conditions need to be improved,' he said.
A woman who lives in the apartment, Louise Troh, said she has been quarantined with her 13-year-old son and two nephews. 'Who wants to be locked up?' she said in an interview with The Associated Press. Troh said she was waiting for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collect a bag of the bed sheets and towels Thomas Eric Duncan used. Visitors from the American Red Cross were seen yesterday bringing food to the apartment door. The North Texas Food Bank said it sent three days of cereal, tuna, produce and other supplies.
Outside the apartment, the management of the 300-unit complex in northeast Dallas was passing out flyers about Ebola to neighbors. Private security guards and local sheriff's deputies blocked off the entrance to dozens of reporters. Apartment manager Sally Nuran said employees were power-washing sidewalks and scrubbing common areas, though she believed Duncan had not visited most of the complex in his short time there.
Elsewhere, Texas health officials expanded their efforts to contain the virus, reaching out to as many as 100 people who may have had direct contact with Duncan or someone close to him. None of the people is showing symptoms, but public-health officials have educated them about Ebola and told them to notify medical workers if they begin to feel ill, Erikka Neroes, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services agency, said yesterday.
Here are reasons why you should not panic
It s not a disaster:
It s true that the disease has killed thousands of people in West Africa and is still not under control, but you need to understand that with people travelling from one part of the world to another, it s not surprising that the virus has entered US.
Contact tracing already initiated
As far as the possibility of the patient s family members being infected is concerned, the US health authorities will be identifying each and every person who might have come in contact with the patient. Even if they are detected with the virus, the chances of them spreading it to others will be less if contact tracing is done quickly.
Health authorities confident about controlling it
In an official statement confirming the first Ebola positive case in US, Tom Frieden, director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assured the citizens that the outbreak won t spread beyond that one patient. There is no doubt, in my mind, that we will stop it here. I have no doubt that we will control this case of Ebola so it does not spread widely in this country, Frieden mentioned. Ebola can be scary. But there s all the difference in the world between the US and other parts of Africa where Ebola is spreading. We will certainly make sure this case does not threaten our communities, he assured.
With inputs from PTI
Image source: Getty images
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