Ebola patient's family members confined to Dallas home

Associated Press

DALLAS

Four members of a family the U.S. Ebola patient was staying with were confined to their Texas home under armed guard Thursday as the circle of people possibly exposed to the virus widened, while 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.

“We didn’t have the confidence we would have been able to monitor them the way that we needed to,” he said.

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

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

“Who wants to be locked up?” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

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

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, will return to complete the job today.

The family also must 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. The North Texas Food Bank said it sent three days of cereal, tuna, produce and other supplies.

Outside the apartment, the management of the 300-unit complex in northeast Dallas was passing out fliers about Ebola to neighbors. Private security guards and local deputy sheriffs 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 in his short time 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 educated them about Ebola and told them to notify medical workers if they begin to feel ill, Erikka Neroes, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services agency, said Thursday.

The group will be monitored to see if anyone seeks medical care during the three weeks immediately after the time of contact, Neroes said.

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

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

The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can be spread only through close contact with someone who has symptoms. People must come into direct contact with the patient’s bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — and those fluids must have an entry point.

Ebola dried on surfaces can survive for several hours, according to the CDC.

In Liberia, authorities announced plans to prosecute Duncan, alleging that he lied on a form about not having any contact with an infected person.