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The
first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US is in critical condition at
a Dallas hospital and is not receiving any of the new experimental drugs for
the virus, which has killed over 3,400 people in Africa, media reports say.
Thomas
Eric Duncan contracted the disease in Liberia and began to show symptoms after
arriving in Texas two weeks ago, causing a panic that he could have infected
another 10 individuals.
Dr.
Thomas Frieden, director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), said Duncan is in critical condition, adding that the patient is not
receiving ZMapp – an experimental medicine – because it is “all gone” and is “not
going to be available anytime soon.”
The
comments were made during a briefing with reporters on Sunday.
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| Screengrab of the house in which Thomas Eric Duncan was staying in Texas. Credits: abcnews.com |
Speaking
on another experiential drug produced by Canada’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp,
Frieden described the treatment as “difficult for patients to take.”
The
decision whether to give this drug to the patient will be made by his doctor
and family members, but “access” to the medicine will be made available.
“As
far as we understand, experimental medicine is not being used,” Frieden said. “It’s
really up to his treating physicians, himself, his family what treatment to
take.”
Outbreak
risks
Duncan’s
case has sparked fears of Ebola spreading across the US, particularly due to
the fact that the Dallas hospital failed to diagnose the virus the first time
around and sent the patient home with antibiotics.
“The
issue of the missed diagnosis initially is concerning,” Frieden told CNN’s
State of the Union. “We’re seeing more people calling us, considering the
possibility of Ebola – that’s what we want to see. We don’t want people not to
be diagnosed.”
Frieden
added that it was unlikely for the disease to spread widely across the US.
US
health officials are currently monitoring 10 quarantined people who had contact
with Duncan. The individuals are considered to be “high risk,” and are being
checked at regular intervals for symptoms of the disease.
Another
38 were previously being observed as potential contacts. The original list of
all the people Duncan had contact with included 114 individuals.
In
the meantime, the state of Nebraska is getting ready to receive a US Ebola
patient who also became infected in Liberia, Reuters quoted Nebraska Medical
Center spokesman Taylor Wilson as saying on Sunday.
Wilson
identified the patient as male, refusing to provide any further details.
However, Reuters reported that the patient might be a freelance cameraman
working for NBC News, Ashoka Mukpo, citing the father of the individual.
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Ashoka Mukpo, 33, (L) became the fifth American
diagnosed with Ebola, it was announced Thursday, after he begun working as a
freelance cameraman for NBC News this week. The revelation has left his family
and friends reeling — knowing how he was willing to be in the epicenter of an
illness that has killed more than 3,000 people in West Africa.
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Meanwhile
scientists estimate there’s a 75% chance the Ebola virus could spread to France
and as 50% chance it could reach UK by the end of October. The latest research
analyzes the pattern of infection and airline traffic.
The
consensus among health officials is now that the deadly virus is no longer just
an African problem, and key to this assessment are the European Union’s free
movement policy and the deceptive incubation period, allowing the person to
spread the infection unaware.
France
has the worst statistics out of all the European countries because the
worst-hit countries in Africa are French-speaking, including Guinea, Sierra
Leone and Liberia, according to the study ‘Assessing the International
Spreading Risk Associated with the 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak’.
"If
this thing continues to rage on in West Africa and indeed gets worse, as some
people have predicted, then it's only a matter of time before one of these
cases ends up on a plane to Europe,” expert in viruses from Britain's Lancaster
University, Derek Gatherer, said.
The
next country on the list after France and the UK is Belgium, with a 40% chance
of infection. Meanwhile, Spain and Switzerland face smaller risks of the virus
breaching its borders with 14 per cent.
One
of the key elements in analyzing the spread of the disease is air traffic, the
leader behind the research, Alex Vespignani, from Northeastern University in
Boston told Reuters.
"Air
traffic is the driver," Vespignani said. "But there are also differences
in connections with the affected countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone),
as well as different numbers of cases in these three countries - so depending
on that, the probability numbers change."
While
Vespignani admits the model is inconclusive, and could widen to include others,
one thing is certain: the probability of contracting the virus is growing for
everyone, “it’s just a matter of who gets lucky and who gets unlucky.”
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Despite
approaching the disease with extreme caution, the World Health Organization
(WHO) placed no restrictions on flights to the worst-affected countries. And
while British Airways and Emirates are no longer flying there, Air France has
only suspended flights to Sierra Leone – not Liberia, Guinea or Nigeria (though
air crews were recently offered the option to refuse flying to those
destinations).
But
the strategy for combating the virus isn’t only dependent on air traffic
regulations. The most dangerous contributor to the spread is the behaviour of
the virus. Its symptoms catch people unawares and normally follow a 21-day
incubation period, during which there’s literally no visible sign the person
has contracted Ebola.
This
allows for circulation of sick passengers and is presumably how Liberian Thomas
Eric Duncan was allowed to enter the US and remain there for several days with
no knowledge of his condition.
This
is further complicated by the EU’s free movement system – one can literally
infect anyone they come into contact with in the space of a few days if they
were to drive or fly from one country to another.
Airport
screenings aren’t effective 100% of the time, due to patients using
fever-reducing drugs or simply lying to get on the plane, as well as airport
staff lacking competence in the field.
The
only mitigating factor here is that the disease is at its most contagious when
the associated symptoms of profuse vomiting and diarrhoea begin to manifest
themselves, which occurs when the disease reaches terminal stage. By then, the
patient is quickly isolated from the public.
But
the prospects aren’t as grim when considering that the EU is mostly comprised
of very well-developed countries. The ability to have a coordinated approach to
the problem greatly lowers the risk and is “considered to be sufficient to
interrupt any possible local transmission of the disease early," according
to the latest assessment from the European Centres of Disease Prevention and
Control.
This
can be witnessed in Nigeria, which, despite its worst-hit neighbours in West
Africa, still managed to stem the flow of infection to only 20 cases and eight
deaths. The country is already on its way to being declared Ebola-free in a
matter of weeks.
"Even
if we have a worst-case scenario where someone doesn't present for medical
treatment, or… it's not correctly identified as Ebola, and we get secondary
transmission, it's not likely to be a very long secondary transmission
chain," Gatherer says.
This
is further helped by Europe’s “very sanitized, sterile lives” and the fact that
it’s a much less crowded environment than the poverty-stricken settlements
where infection is generally rife.
The
new study comes as an Ebola-infected US citizen struggles for survival in a
Texas hospital.
The
Ebola virus has so far taken the lives of over 3,400 people since March and has
been declared the worst epidemic in history.
Symptoms of the deadly
Ebola virus, which has hit the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone,
and Guinea, include fever, vomiting, and diarrhoea. The disease is contagious
and is acquired through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.
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