Liberia to prosecute Duncan for lying on applicati

Liberian authorities to prosecute man infected with Ebola who brought disease to US, saying he lied on airport health questionnaire - @AP




Oct 2, 1:21 PM EDT


Liberia to prosecute man who brought Ebola to US

By DAVID WARREN
Associated Press




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DALLAS (AP) -- Liberia plans to prosecute the airline passenger who brought Ebola into the U.S., alleging that he lied on a health questionnaire about not having any contact with an infected person, authorities said Thursday.

Thomas Eric Duncan filled out a series of questions at the airport about his health and activities in the weeks before his flight. On a Sept. 19 form obtained by The Associated Press, he answered no to all of them.

Among other questions, the form asked whether Duncan had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of anyone who had died in an area affected by Ebola.

"We expect people to do the honorable thing," said Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the board of directors of the Liberia Airport Authority.

Neighbors in the Liberian capital of Monrovia believe Duncan become infected when he helped bundle a sick pregnant neighbor into a taxi a few weeks ago and set off with her to find treatment.

He arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20.

In Texas, health officials have reached out to about 80 people who may have had direct contact with the man who brought Ebola into the U.S. or someone close to him, a public-health spokeswoman said Thursday.

None of the people is showing symptoms, but health authorities have educated them about Ebola and told them to notify medical workers if they feel ill.

The group will be monitored to see if anyone seeks medical care during the three weeks immediately following the time of contact, said Erikka Neroes, of the Dallas County Health and Human Services agency.

The people include 12 to 18 who came in direct contact with the infected man, as well as others known to have had contact with them, she said.

"This is a big spider web" of people involved, Neroes said.

The initial group includes three members of the ambulance crew that took Thomas Eric Duncan to the hospital, plus a handful of schoolchildren.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said Thursday it has a list of about 100 possible contacts but that the official number will be lower.

Health officials are focusing on containment to try to stem the possibility of the Ebola virus spreading beyond Thomas Eric Duncan, who traveled from Liberia to Dallas to visit relatives and fell ill on Sept. 24. His sister, Mai Wureh, identified Duncan as the infected man in an interview with The Associated Press.

A Dallas emergency room sent Duncan home last week, even though he told a nurse that he had been in disease-ravaged West Africa. The decision by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital to release Duncan could have put others at risk of exposure to Ebola before the man went back to the ER a couple of days later when his condition worsened.

The patient explained to a nurse last Thursday that he was visiting the U.S. from Africa, but that information was not widely shared, said Dr. Mark Lester, who works for the hospital's parent company.

Hospital epidemiologist Dr. Edward Goodman said the patient had a fever and abdominal pain during his first ER visit, not the riskier symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. Duncan was diagnosed with a low-risk infection and sent home, Lester said.

The hospital is reviewing how the situation would have been handled if all staff had been aware of the man's circumstances.

But the diagnosis, and the hospital's slip-up, highlighted the wider threat of Ebola, even far from Africa.

"The scrutiny just needs to be higher now," said Dr. Rade Vukmir, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Duncan has been kept in isolation at the hospital since Sunday. He was listed in serious but stable condition.

The 19-year-old pregnant woman was convulsing and complaining of stomach pain, and everyone thought her problems were related to her pregnancy, in its seventh month. No ambulance would come for her, and the group that put her in a taxi never did find a hospital. She died, and in the following weeks, all the neighbors who helped have gotten sick or died, neighbors said.

Duncan's neighborhood, a collection of tin-roofed homes, has been ravaged by Ebola. So many people have fallen ill that neighbors are too frightened to comfort a 9-year-old girl who lost her mother to the disease.

Ebola is believed to have sickened more than 7,100 people in West Africa and killed more than 3,300, according to the World Health Organization. Liberia is one of the three countries hit hardest in the epidemic, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Ebola symptoms can include fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding, and can appear as long as 21 days after exposure to the virus. The disease is not contagious until symptoms begin. It spreads only by close contact with an infected person's bodily fluids.

Duncan left Liberia on Sept. 19, flying from Brussels to Dulles Airport near Washington. He then boarded a flight for Dallas-Fort Worth, according to airlines, and arrived the next day. He started feeling ill four or five days later, Frieden said.

Since the man had no symptoms on the plane, the CDC stressed there is no risk to his fellow passengers, said Dr. Tom Kenyon, director of the CDC's Center for Global Health.

The CDC has received 94 inquiries from states about illnesses that initially were suspected to be Ebola, but after taking travel histories and doing some other work, most were ruled out. Of the 13 people who actually underwent testing, only one - Duncan - tested positive.

Four American aid workers who became infected in West Africa have been flown back to the U.S. for treatment after they became sick. Three have recovered.

waterboy wrote: Duncan's neighborhood, a collection of tin-roofed homes, has been ravaged by Ebola. So many people have fallen ill that neighbors are too frightened to comfort a 9-year-old girl who lost her mother to the disease.

Many sick in US Ebola patient's Liberia hometown

When no ambulance came, Duncan, Marthalene Williams' parents and several others lifted her into a taxi, and Duncan rode in the front seat as the cab took Williams to the hospital. She later died.

Within weeks, everyone who helped Williams that day was either sick or dead, too - victims of Ebola, the virus that is ravaging Liberia's capital and other parts of West Africa, with more than 3,300 deaths reported.

The disease is spread through direct contact with saliva, sweat, blood and other bodily fluids, and all those who fell ill after helping Williams had touched her. She turned out to have Ebola.

Duncan is now hospitalized in an isolation ward in Texas after falling sick with Ebola following his arrival last month on a family visit. He has become a symbol of how the lethal disease could spread within the U.S.

Here in Liberia, however, he is just another neighbor infected by a virus that is devastating the cluster of tin-roof homes along 72nd SKD Boulevard where Williams lived.

"My pa and four other people took her to the car. Duncan was in the front seat with the driver, and the others were in the back seat with her," recounted her 15-year-old cousin Angela Garway, standing in the courtyard between the homes where they all lived. "He was a good person."

Meanwhile, Liberian authorities Thursday announced plans to prosecute Duncan, saying the delivery driver lied about his Ebola status upon leaving the country.

On an airport screening questionnaire obtained by The Associated Press, Duncan said that he hadn't come into contact with an Ebola patient. However, it is not clear whether he had learned of Williams' diagnosis before traveling.

In an interview with Canada's CBC News, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said she was "very saddened" and "very angry" with Duncan for putting Americans at risk, adding: "I just hope that nobody else gets infected."

In the neighborhood where Williams lived, some people were no longer willing to take any risks Thursday, not after seeing what happened to those who showed compassion for the pregnant woman.

As 9-year-old Mercy Kennedy sobbed along with neighbors mourning news of her mother's death, not a person would touch the little girl to comfort her.

Mercy's mother had helped to wash the pregnant woman's clothes, and had touched her body after she died at home when no hospital could find space for her, neighbors said.

On Thursday, little Mercy walked around in a daze in a torn nightgown and flip-flops, pulling up the fabric to wipe her tears as a group of workers from the neighborhood task force followed the sound of wailing through the thick grove of banana trees and corn plants.

"We love you so dearly, yeah," one man wearing rubber gloves told her from a safe distance. "We want to take care of you. Have you been playing with your friends here?"

With Mercy's mother dead, neighbors fear it is only a matter of time before she, too, shows signs of the virus, and they want to know which other children may have come into contact with her while she was fetching water.

Pewu Wolobah, a member of the neighborhood anti-Ebola task force, lamented that even as Americans try to trace all of Duncan's contacts there, the virus is spreading through Duncan's old neighborhood faster than anyone can keep track.

The aunt of the pregnant victim died on Wednesday after collapsing in her house next door to the Williams home. Her 15-year-old daughter Angela is left behind, along with the pregnant woman's three younger siblings - Ezo Williams, 16, Tete Williams, 12, and Stanley Williams, 3 - and the family dog.

Their parents left Thursday morning for an Ebola treatment center. As word spread that they, too, took a taxi, the health workers expressed alarm.

"Does anybody know the taxi number or the license plate?" one man called into the crowd. "We need to find this vehicle!"

All the cases, including Duncan's, appear to have started with Williams, though some wondered how a pregnant woman who stayed at home could have contracted Ebola. Maybe it was her boyfriend, who hasn't been seen in weeks, they said. Or could it have been her close friend known as Baby D, who has since died herself?

The tragedy of Williams' death could grow larger still: Neighbors and relatives said more than 100 people came to a wake for her. No one could say for sure how many people may have touched the body.

"We had a lot of people come from a great distance to sympathize with her family," said Joseph Dolo from the anti-Ebola task force. "She had a lot of friends."

Duncan is somewhat of a slimeball.  Not only did he know what he had, but he also had no prob bringing it to his girlfriend and kids.   He's a bad guy...

I hear what you are saying Germ Nerd but I find it very hard to believe he didn't know.  This has been going on in his area for months.  Some questions to ask... did they try to take her to the hospital or an ebola isolation clinic... I read somewhere they had no room for her so they (including Duncan) brought her back home... another question... why the hasty exit... had he been planning this trip for a long time or  was the decision to leave made quickly... how was the ticket paid for... there are a few things we could still try & find out to get more clues as to whether he knew or not.  But my gut tells me he knew.

Albert wrote: Duncan is somewhat of a slimeball.  Not only did he know what he had, but he also had no prob bringing it to his girlfriend and kids.   He's a bad guy...

The Sowyer/Duck-in common thread: Airlines.

At what point will the airlines be sued to bankruptcy? Is there even time before it won't matter anyway?

Well he started out in critical then they said serious... I always thought serious was a step down from critical, that's been my experience with ICU here.  So now he's taken a turn for the worse?