Ebola In The U.S: Alabamians Weigh In
In the wake of a Dallas patient being diagnosed with the Ebola virus, many people across the U.S. are worried the virus has arrived here and that includes people in our area.
The name of that patient being treated has been released– his name is Thomas Eric Duncan, who recently traveled from West Africa and was diagnosed with the virus after flying to Dallas earlier this month. While the Ebola virus was first recorded in 1976, it’s never hit the U.S until now.
He was transported to a Texas hospital on Sunday — hospital officials say, as of this morning, Thomas is in serious, but stable condition. Now, health officials are monitoring up to 18 people he was exposed to, including some of his family members.
So right now, the team from the Centers for Disease Control is in Dallas working with local and state health agencies to make sure all of those at-risk people are watched every day for 21 days.
While Alabama hasn’t seen an outbreak, residents say they believe the state has enough resources to stop the disease from spreading…
“We really push precvention and I think that for me personally, washing hadns and all of those things withinn baptist health, we really incorporate that, we really push that,” Said community events cordinator of the Baptist health fair, Elizabeth Williams.
“Our methods are more advanced as far a quarantining and making sure that you contain that virus to where it is and find the source for that virus,” Said manager of industrial medicine and marketing Allmed physicians, Ginger MaClean.
“I believe we’ve got a lot of resources here theres a lot of technique here, there’s a whole lot of stuff here so I mean they got the things they need here,” Said Montgomery resident, Charles Bates.
CDC director, Tom Frieden, says he isn’t worried about this being the beginning of an outbreak…
He says he’s confident that with our strong health care and infection control, and public health system.. This virus will be stopped from spreading in the states.
Some of those Ebola symptoms include fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding.
The disease is not contagious until symptoms begin, and it takes close contact with bodily fluids to spread.
So far, more than 3,000 deaths have been linked to the disease.
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