The first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States has died, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said Wednesday.
The news of Thomas Eric Duncan’s passing comes as those he came into contact with enter a critical period this week in determining whether they have also contracted the deadly virus.
Duncan, 42, was diagnosed with Ebola on Sept. 30, after arriving in the U.S. from Liberia on Sept. 20. He first went to the Dallas hospital with a fever on Sept. 26, but was sent home, despite telling a nurse he came from the Ebola-stricken country. The information did not reach doctors at the hospital, and he was discharged with antibiotics. He returned to the hospital two days later and was placed in isolation.
Texas officials continue to monitor 10 people who had direct contact with him while he was symptomatic, as well as 38 others who may have had contact. None have shown symptoms of the disease up to this point.
The incubation period of Ebola is a maximum of 21 days, with symptoms commonly beginning to present eight to 10 days after exposure. If Duncan passed the virus onto anyone else, that would likely become evident this week.
If any show signs of a fever, or other symptoms, health officials plan to immediately isolate and test those individuals for the virus.
Duncan was in serious condition until this past weekend, when his condition was changed to critical, and he was given the experimental drug brincidofovir, an oral medicine developed by Chimerix. The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization for the treatment; it had previously been tested against Ebola only in test-tube studies.
Duncan is the first patient to die of Ebola in the U.S. At least five patients already diagnosed with Ebola in West Africa had been taken to the U.S. for treatment. Two were treated and released from Emory University Hospital, one was treated and released from Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, a fourth is currently in treatment at Emory, and a fifth is in treatment in Nebraska.
The current Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,000 people in Duncan’s native Liberia, according to the latest estimates from the World Health Organization. There have been more than 3,400 total deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, and more than twice as many reported cases.
