Four who hosted Dallas Ebola patient quarantined

Four people close to the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States were quarantined in a Dallas apartment, where sheets and other items used by the man were sealed in plastic bags, as health officials widened their search for others who had direct or indirect contact with him and Liberian authorities said they would prosecute the man for allegedly lying on an airport questionnaire.

The unusual confinement order was imposed after the family failed to comply with a request not to leave their apartment, according to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

Texas State Health Commissioner David Lakey said the order would help ensure the four can be closely watched, including checking them for fevers over the next three weeks.

The family will not be allowed to receive visitors, officials said.

Ebola can cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea and spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva. The case has raised questions about whether a disease that has killed 3,300 people in West Africa could spread in the United States.

Officials have said the U.S. healthcare system is well prepared to contain the hemorrhagic fever's spread by careful tracking of those who have had contact with the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, and employing appropriate care.

Dallas County officials said the problem was very localized. "When I say local, I don’t mean Dallas. I mean a very specific neighborhood in the northeast part of Dallas," the city's mayor, Mike Rawlings, told reporters.

President Barack Obama called Rawlings on Thursday and "pledged federal agencies will remain in close coordination and reiterated his confidence in America's doctors and national health infrastructure to handle this case safely and effectively," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz.  

A woman who lives in the apartment, Louise Troh, said she has been quarantined with her 13-year-old son and two nephews.

Troh said she was waiting for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collect a bag of the bed sheets and towels used by Duncan.

A hazardous material crew arrived to decontaminate the apartment Thursday evening but did not have the required permits to clean the home and remove hazardous waste, city spokesman Richard Hill said. He said the crew, contracted by the county and state, would return to complete the job on Friday.

The family must also be relocated before the cleanup can begin, Hill said. He had no information on where the family will go.

Visitors from the American Red Cross were seen Thursday bringing food to the apartment door. 

Outside, the management of the 300-unit complex in northeast Dallas was passing out flyers about Ebola to residents. Private security guards and local sheriff's deputies blocked off the entrance to dozens of reporters.

Apartment manager Sally Nuran said employees were power-washing sidewalks and scrubbing common areas, though she believed Duncan had not visited most of the complex while he was there.

Elsewhere, Texas health officials expanded their efforts to contain the virus, reaching out to as many as 100 people who may have had direct contact with Duncan or someone close to him.

None of the people is showing symptoms, but public-health officials have and told them to notify medical workers if they begin to feel ill, said Erikka Neroes, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services agency.

The at-risk group includes 12 to 18 people who came in direct contact with the infected man, including an ambulance crew and a handful of schoolchildren, she said.

In Liberia, the head of the country's airport authority, Binyah Kesselly, said the government could prosecute Duncan for denying he had contact with someone who was eventually diagnosed with Ebola.

The government said Duncan failed to declare that he helped neighbor Marthalene Williams after she fell critically ill on Sept. 15. Williams died.

Duncan answered questions about his health and activities before leaving for Dallas. Among the questions asked on the Sept. 19 form, one asked whether Duncan had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of anyone who had died in an area affected by Ebola. He answered no to all the questions.

"To all of these questions, Mr. Duncan answered 'no,'" Kesselly said.

Duncan arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and fell ill a few days later.

A Dallas emergency room sent Duncan home last week, even though he told a nurse that he had been in disease-ravaged West Africa, and raising questions as to whether the decision to release him may have put others at risk of exposure to Ebola.

In a statement emailed late Thursday, the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said that it followed communicable disease protocols by also asking Duncan if he had come into contact with anyone who was ill, to which he replied he had not.

At that point his symptoms were a temperature of 100.1F, two days of abdominal pain, a headache and decreased urination, the hospital said. He said he had no nausea, vomiting or diarrhea, and based on that information, the hospital decided to release him.

He returned to the facility two days layer and has been kept in isolation at the hospital since Sunday. He was listed Thursday in serious but stable condition.

Wire services