Up to 100 people may have had direct or indirect contact with the first person to be diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus in the United States, and four of his relatives have been quarantined in their homes as a precaution, Texas health officials said Thursday.
Dallas County officials said 12 to 18 people had direct contact with the Texas patient,who has been identified as Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, and they in turn had contact with scores of others.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said most of the 100 people have been interviewed and the CDC has identified only a handful of individuals so far who may really have been exposed to Ebola and therefore will be monitored.
Erikka Neroes, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County health department, said none of those being monitored were showing symptoms of the disease, which include fever, uncontrollable bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea and spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.
Duncan was diagnosed with the Ebola virus on Sunday. He is in isolation at a Dallas hospital, where his condition is listed as serious but stable.
Also Thursday, Liberian authorities said Duncan will be prosecuted when he returns home for lying on his airport screening questionnaire.
With an Ebola epidemic raging in West Africa, passengers leaving Liberia are being screened for fever and are asked if they have had contact with anyone infected.
On the form obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by a government official, Duncan answered "no" to questions about whether he had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of someone who had died in an area affected by Ebola.
Days before he left Liberia, Duncan had helped carry to a taxi a pregnant woman who later died of Ebola, according to neighbors and reported by AP. Her illness at the time was believed to be pregnancy-related.
Public health authorities have been calling on U.S. health care workers to screen patients for signs of illness, question patients about their travel history and rule out Ebola for those who have been to West Africa, where more than 3,000 people have died in the epidemic.
“Unfortunately, that did not happen in this case,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “We just need to put that behind us and look ahead and make sure that in the future that doesn't happen again.”
Duncan flew to Texas from Liberia via Brussels and Washington. He arrived in the United States on September 20, and five days later went to the hospital with a low-grade fever and abdominal pain.
CNN reported that a Dallas woman who had a child with Duncan said he had sweated profusely in the bed they shared at her apartment. She said the sheets where he had lain were still on the bed.
Hospital officials said Duncan told an emergency room nurse he had come from Liberia, but admitted his travel information had not been shared with other staff who were treating him.
Duncan was sent home with antibiotics but returned two days later.
Also on Thursday, Britain made a plea for international help to deal with the world's worst Ebola outbreak at the start of a conference in London, with one charity warning that five people are being infected with the virus every hour in Sierra Leone.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond called for "decisive action" to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, urging countries to increase financial aid as well as provide other vital help including medical expertise, transport and supplies.
Hammond told the "Defeating Ebola" conference Thursday in London that such action could save hundreds of thousands of lives and prevent the crisis from getting further out of control.
“We’re at a tipping point in the management of this Ebola outbreak, we've got more than 20 countries coming together here and we’re hoping that the commitments and the pledges that are made today will allow us to make a step change in our response, get ahead of the curve so that we can contain and then beat this disease," he said.
Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma, due to attend Thursday's conference, had to cancel because of technical problems with his plane.
Ebola has killed at least 3,338 in West Africa - mainly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia - out of 7,178 cases as of September 28, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, and cases have been recorded elsewhere, including in the United States.