statcounter

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Patient being tested in Delaware for possible Ebola virus










Posted: Oct 05, 2014 8:12 PM EST Updated: Oct 05, 2014 8:14 PM EST
(FOX NEWS)A patient with Ebola-like symptoms is being tested for the deadly virus at a Delaware hospital, Fox News confirmed Sunday.
A nurse at Bayhealth Kent General Hospital in Dover confirmed to Fox News that a patient exhibiting Ebola symptoms has been placed in isolation in the hospital and is being tested for the deadly virus, but did not give any more detail.
The only confirmed U.S. Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, is in critical condition at a Dallas hospital.
Also Sunday, officials said after several hours of searching they located a homeless man who was sought because of possible contact with Duncan.
The person is not considered to be one of the 10 people who definitely had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, who is in critical condition at a Dallas hospital. However, he is part of a larger group of 38 people who may have been around Duncan when he was showing symptoms of the disease, officials said.
He was found a few hours after officials on Sunday morning announced he was missing, Dallas city spokeswoman Sana Syed said.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins called the man, whom he didn't identify, a "low-risk individual." Authorities had monitored him a day earlier but want to take his temperature regularly to make sure he doesn't have a fever, a possible symptom of Ebola infection.
Jenkins said the man would receive a mental health evaluation at Dallas' Parkland Hospital. The man will eventually be placed in housing that give allow health workers direct access to him daily. Syed said it was unlikely that the man would be placed in a homeless shelter.
The group of 10 people is composed of seven health care workers and three family members or community contacts, said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 800 calls and emails are coming in daily to the CDC on Ebola, up from about 50 to 100 before Duncan was diagnosed on Tuesday, Frieden said. Frieden said he is scheduled to brief President Barack Obama on Monday.
Duncan has been hospitalized at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital for one week and was listed Sunday in critical condition. Frieden said Sunday that he was aware that Duncan's health had "taken a turn for the worse," but he declined to say what signs of poor health Duncan had shown.
Four members of a family who hosted Duncan in their northeast Dallas apartment are under isolation, though they have not shown symptoms of infection. http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/26709462/patient-being-tested-in-delaware-for-possible-ebola-virus