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 President Barack Obama expressed cautious optimism about the
situation in the United States after meeting with his Ebola response
coordinator, Ron Klain, and other top officials on Klain's first day
on the job since being named on Friday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's new
restrictions on travelers arriving from Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea marked the latest precautions put in place by the Obama
administration to stop the spread of the virus. The steps stopped
short of a ban on travelers from those countries demanded by some
lawmakers.
Health authorities and the public have been on alert for Ebola since
late September when a Liberian visiting Dallas, Texas became the
first person diagnosed with the virus in the United States. Two
nurses who cared for him were also infected.
The CDC said that, beginning on Monday, travelers from the three
countries will be told to check in with health officials every day
and report their temperatures and any Ebola symptoms for 21 days,
the period of incubation for the virus.
The travelers will be required to provide emails, phone numbers and
addresses for themselves and for a friend or relative in the United
States covering the 21 days, and the information will be shared with
local health authorities.
The travelers also will be required to coordinate with local public
health officials if they intend to travel within the United States.
If a traveler does not report in, local health officials will take
immediate steps to find the person.
CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden told reporters the active monitoring
program will remain in place until the outbreak in West Africa is
over. The U.N. World Health Organization's latest figures on
Wednesday showed at least 4,877 people out of 9,936 confirmed,
probable and suspected cases have died in the outbreak, the worst on
record.
"These new measures I'm announcing today will give additional levels
of safety so that people who develop symptoms of Ebola are isolated
early in the course of their illness," Frieden said. "That will
reduce the chance that Ebola will spread from an ill person through
close contact and to healthcare workers."
Beginning Wednesday, travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea
were being funneled through one of five major U.S. airports
conducting increased screening for the virus.
Six states account for nearly 70 percent of all travelers arriving
from the affected countries: New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Virginia, New Jersey and Georgia. The new monitoring will begin in
those states first and will be expanded to other states.
The CDC said the monitoring program affects anyone coming back from
the region, including CDC employees and journalists. It said when
affected travelers enter one of the five airports they will receive
a care kit that contains a tracking log, a pictorial description of
symptoms, a thermometer, instructions on how to monitor their
temperature and information on what to do if they experience
symptoms.
Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on Oct. 8 and nurses Nina Pham
and Amber Vinson of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, are the only
cases detected in the country. Pham's condition was last upgraded on
Tuesday to good from fair at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
Vinson's family said in a statement Wednesday that officials at the
CDC and Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where she is being
treated, "are no longer able to detect virus in her body."
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OBAMA SEES PROGRESS
Speaking in the White House Oval Office with Klain sitting on a
couch beside him, Obama said the CDC would continue to put in place
further measures to prevent the spread of Ebola as needed.
"A number of things make us cautiously more optimistic about the
situation here in the United States," Obama said, noting that dozens
of people who interacted with Duncan did not get Ebola.
Obama said officials were working to ensure that problems that arose
with Ebola protocols at the Dallas hospital do not occur again. He
expressed confidence that any further Ebola patients would get
first-class treatment and said officials would make sure hospitals
are prepared and would take the right precautions.
The White House said Obama spoke by phone with staff at Texas
Presbyterian Hospital "to thank them for their courage and
perseverance in dealing with the first cases of Ebola to appear in
the United States."
Human testing of a second "investigational" Ebola vaccine has begun
at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center in
Maryland, officials said.
The vaccine was developed at the Public Health Agency of Canada's
National Microbiology Laboratory and licensed to NewLink Genetics
Corp through its wholly owned subsidiary BioProtection Systems, both
based in Ames, Iowa, the NIH said.
Testing on a first potential vaccine began last month, and initial
results were expected by year's end.
NBC freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, an American who contracted
Ebola while working in West Africa, is free of the virus and was
discharged on Wednesday from a special unit at Nebraska Medical
Center in Omaha, the hospital said.
"I feel profoundly blessed to be alive, and in the same breath aware
of the global inequalities that allowed me to be flown to an
American hospital when so many Liberians die alone with minimal
care," Mukpo said in a statement.
The 1-year-old King Charles Spaniel belonging to Pham has tested
free of the virus, the city of Dallas said.
(Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London, Will Dunham and
Susan Heavey in Washington, Barbara Goldberg in New York, Julie
Steenhuysen in Chicago and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Writing by
Will Dunham; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Grant McCool and Jonathan
Oatis)
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