America's first Ebola patient has been diagnosed in Atlanta. The patient was diagnosed with the killer virus five days after arriving in the United States, leaving a huge window for the virus to be spread.
Health officials on Tuesday refused to give the identity of the man whom they said is under an intensive care unit. In fact, the officials were reluctant to state whether the patient was a man or a woman, but the Thomas Frieden, Director of the center for Disease Control and Prevention used 'he' quite frequently.
For security concerns, the man's identity was not given. However, Frieden stated that the man had left Liberia and arrived at the US just five days earlier. The Ebola symptoms by then were not showing. The symptoms started showing two days after landing in US.
The patient is rumored to have been staying with his relatives. The man was exposed to a lot of contact with people during his stay. Health officials are on the lookout for any possible spread of the virus.
Ebola is a hemorrhagic condition where patients die of excess blood loss. The symptoms of the disease include fevers, headaches, weakness, muscle pain and sore throats. The symptoms may be confused with those of Malaria or Typhoid.
The ambulance that carried the patient to hospital has been decontaminated while those who rushed the patient to the hospital have been isolated.
Ebola is spread through direct human contact. This implies that the passengers who were on the same flight as the patient are not at risk since the symptoms in the patient had not shown by then.
Authorities are working closely to isolate any case of contact the patient may have had. "The bottom line here is that I have no doubt that we will control this importation or this case of Ebola so that it does not spread widely in this country," Frieden said.
