By Glynn Cosker
Editor, In Homeland Security
The CDC has confirmed that a patient under observation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas has the Ebola virus. The CDC will now mobilize its Ebola response team. The unidentified person, who recently visited an Ebola-stricken region in West Africa, is under “strict isolation” according to hospital representative Candace White.
The hospital stated that it is “following all federal CDC and Texas Department of Heath recommendations to ensure the safety of patients, hospital staff, volunteers, physicians and visitors.”
As a precaution, health department officials are seeking individuals that the patient may have interacted with upon his return from West Africa. It is feasible that anybody who came into close contact with the patient may need to also be isolated.
“We know at this time this person was not symptomatic during travel but became symptomatic once arriving here and being home for several days,” said Dr. Christopher Perkins, director of Dallas County’s Department of Health and Human Services. “So that decreases the threat that might be to the general population.”
Today’s news comes after it was revealed that an unnamed doctor who was exposed to Ebola while in Sierra Leone was admitted to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Four other individuals were treated this year for Ebola in hospitals in Georgia and Nebraska.
The Ebola virus has killed more than 3,000 people in Africa and some worse-case scenarios predict a death toll of 1 million people by early 2015. According to the World Health Organization five African countries are affected by the Ebola virus so far: Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal.
President Barack Obama has stated that the U.S. is ready to send aid to the region including military and medical assistance.
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