In addition, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville,
Maryland hospital just north of Washington also had a patient with flu-like
symptoms, and a travel history that caused hospital officials to take extra precautions
against the Ebola virus. Hospital officials at Shady Grove later ruled out
Ebola as the source of infection, however, the Centers for Disease Control is
still monitoring the patient in the D.C. area hospital.
Reports are filtering in that the Ebola outbreak may be
dissipating outbreak areas such as Nigeria and Sierra Leone, but officials and
health care facilities are still on guard for isolated cases of the deadly
virus.
Ebola has killed over 3,000 people to date in West Africa.
In the United States, dozens of people are still being monitored after being
exposed to a man who traveled back to the U.S. from Liberia. Thomas Eric Duncan
is now in critical condition in a Dallas area hospital, and approximately 115 people
he came into contact with, including health care workers and family members,
are under quarantine. Those infected with Ebola can take from two to twenty-one
days to become symptomatic.
More recently, a 35 year old man began vomiting on a United
Airlines flight from Brussels to Newark Liberty International Airport. He was rushed
to the hospital in Newark, while the CDC investigated. Passengers waited for 90
minutes to be cleared to leave. It turned out the man was suffering from a treatable
illness unrelated to Ebola.
Airport officials, in cooperation with the CDC, World Health
Organization (WHO), and other governmental agencies have developed a more
rigorous questionnaire for individuals traveling from areas of known Ebola outbreaks.
In addition, quarantine areas have been set up in airports as another line of
defense to assist in preventing people presenting symptoms of the virus from
entering the United States.