The first Ebola patient in North America has reportedly been taken to a Dallas emergency room after he observed the first symptoms of the disease, and he even told the medical personnel about his previous visit to West Africa, but he was not hospitalized until two days later. Thomas Eric Duncan, a resident of Liberia traveling to Dallas, has visited the emergency room of the Texas Health Presbyterian on Friday, but he was sent home with a course of antibiotics. He was admitted to the hospital only two days later.
In a press conference held by the Texas Health Presbyterian an executive has expressed his regret about the unfortunate outcome of the matter, stating that the information was not widely enough shared with the medical personnel treating Duncan. The diagnosis set up by the doctors at the ER was a log-grade common viral disease. Officials are currently monitoring up to 18 people who could have come in contact with Duncan, including five young children and the crew of the ambulance transporting him to the hospital.
According to an eyewitness of the events at the apartment complex where Duncan stayed, the patient was barely able to walk and was throwing up all over the place before the ambulance finally arrived. In this year’s Ebola outbreak the number of victims has grown over 3,000, most of them in West Africa. Duncan has traveled from Liberia to Dallas, Texas on the 19th of September, but he was symptom-free until a few days later. Fortunately those infected with the dangerous virus don’t transmit the disease until they start showing the symptoms – the first of them are vomiting, diarrhoea and high fever. Only people coming in direct contact with a sick person’s bodily fluids can contract the disease.
[ads2]
The Center for Disease Control recommends medical personnel to use an Ebola checklist to determine whether a patient is at risk of carrying the virus. If a patient shows some symptoms, and has traveled to West Africa lately, the CDC recommends considering them a potential case, and obtain full history.