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World|life|October 4, 2014 / 01:32 PM
Howard Hospital patient in U.S. does not have Ebola, hospital official says

AKIPRESS.COM - Howard HospitalA person who was being evaluated for Ebola at Washington’s Howard University Hospital does not have the deadly disease, The Washington Post reported referring to a hospital official.

“Howard University Hospital in conjunction with the District of Columbia Department of Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ‘ruled out’ Ebola for the patient,” spokeswoman Kerry-Ann Hamilton said in a statement.

Joxel Garcia, director of the D.C. Department of Health, said in a statement: “Ebola has very clear symptoms that inevitably worsen over time, inclusive of fever, bleeding from the eyes and a growing rash that consumes over 75 percent of the human body.”

“Based on the clinical presentation of the patient, the medical team was able to rule out Ebola, the patient will be treated for other illnesses,” he said.

John Davies-Cole, D.C. state epidemiologist, added: “We will continue to work with the Howard University medical team to monitor the patient’s progress.”

In a separate case, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, Md., north of Washington, said late Friday that a patient who had “presented with flu-like symptoms and a travel history that matches criteria for possible Ebola” actually had malaria.

“We have already gotten well over a hundred inquiries of possible patients,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC in Atlanta, said Saturday. “We’ve assessed every one of those with state and local health departments… and hospitals and just… one patient has tested positive.”

The CDC confirmed Tuesday through laboratory tests, the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed in the United States, in a person who had traveled to Dallas from Liberia.

While Ebola continues to devastate West African nations including Liberia and Sierra Leone, the outbreak in Nigeria – where the Howard patient had traveled from – may actually be coming to an end, with no new cases since August 31, the CDC reported earlier this week. At one point, 894 people in Nigeria were being monitored since they had come into contact with someone sick with Ebola.

Overall, the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has killed at least 3,439 people in West Africa and infected thousands more, according to the World Health Organization.

But before an Ebola case was confirmed in Dallas this week, there had not been a single Ebola diagnosis in the United States.

People with Ebola are not contagious until they begin showing symptoms, which include a fever of greater than 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit (38.61 degrees Celsius), severe headache and vomiting. And you can only get Ebola through contact with a contagious person’s bodily fluids.

Several Ebola patients have been transported from West Africa to the United States, including three Americans who were in Liberia — doctors Richard Sacra and Kent Brantly and missionary worker Nancy Writebol — who have already been discharged after they were successfully treated here. A Liberian American, Patrick Sawyer, fell ill after traveling to Nigeria and died of the disease.

On Thursday night, NBC News announced that a freelance cameraman working for the network in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola and will return to the United States for treatment.

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