Contagion

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS                                                                               Nov. 15, 2014

By Sherry Jacobson

The “Ebola cluster” in Dallas County is the subject of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

...the report offers a detailed timeline of what happened, starting with Thomas Eric Duncan’s arrival in Dallas from Liberia on Sept. 20. His Ebola symptoms were misdiagnosed Sept. 25 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas as sinusitis and he was sent home with antibiotics. He returned to the hospital Sept. 28, underwent 10 days of treatment and died Oct. 8.

Two of Duncan’s caretakers, both registered nurses, were also infected and were treated successfully for the disease. Protocols required public health workers to monitor 177 people who had contact with the three Ebola patients.

A dozen people in that group, however, were tested for Ebola after developing fever or other symptoms compatible with the disease during the monitoring period. None were found to have Ebola. By last Friday, all contacts had cleared 21 days of monitoring and the county’s outbreak was declared over.

ABC NEWS                                                                                                            Nov 7, 2014

by  Sydney Ludkin 

DALLAS The final person in Texas being monitored for Ebola has passed the virus's 21-day incubation period, marking the end of the state's Ebola crisis.

None of the 177 people who had contact with the state's Ebola patients -- Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, and two of the Dallas nurses who cared for him, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson -- have contracted Ebola, state officials said. The list included health care workers, people who shared the same households as the Ebola patients and other community contacts.

"Hopefully, Americans will be relieved and fear will be eased," said Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News chief health and medical editor. "In Dallas, not even the people who lived with a very sick person with Ebola became ill."

Read complete story

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/person-completes-ebola-monitoring-texas/story?id=26742640

LOS ANGELES TIMES                                                                                        Nov.5, 2014
By Michael Muskal                                      
The number of people who are being actively monitored for Ebola in New York has tripled to 357 people, none of whom has displayed any symptoms, city health officials announced Wednesday.

The vast majority of those being monitored arrived in New York in the last 21 days from West Africa, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation said in a statement. Those under monitoring are being checked out of “an abundance of caution,” the statement said.

The latest announcement comes as Ohio said it was officially Ebola-free and Texas prepared to end its observation period for the last 27 healthcare workers. The Texas group will complete its 21-day monitoring period on Friday, according to state officials.

Read complete story
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ohio-ebola-free-monitoring-20141105-story.html

REUTERS                                          Oct. 28, 2014
By Colleen Jenkins and Doina Chiacu

A Texas nurse who contracted Ebola in the United States will be released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on Tuesday after being found free of the virus, the hospital said.

Amber Vinson was one of two nurses at a Dallas hospital who had treated Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian visiting Texas who died of Ebola on Oct. 8 and was the first patient diagnosed with the virus in the United States.

She was admitted to Emory's hospital for treatment on Oct. 15. The other nurse, Nina Pham, also was declared virus-free last week and left the Maryland hospital where she had been treated