Texas health officials say so far they have identified and located eighteen people that came into contact with a Texas man diagnosed with Ebola. Five of those eighteen are schoolchildren all attending classes at different campuses in Dallas.
State and Federal Health Officials say the schools are safe and they remain open. The five kids, ranging from elementary-age children to high schoolers, are being monitored at home and have not been quarantined.
Livestreamed through Dallas’ NBC-affiliate WFAA-TV, Governor Rick Perry reiterated the fact that Ebola could not be transmitted until a person showed symptoms.
“This is a disease that is not airborne and is substantially more difficult to contract than the common cold."
At that same news conference, the Commissioner for the Department of State Health Services, Dr. David Lakey, says his office is working with local doctors and a federal health team, and that he had confidence the case will remain contained.
“This is not West Africa," Lakey said. "This is a very sophisticated city, a very sophisticated hospital and the dynamics are so significantly different than they are in West Africa that the chances of it being spread are very, very small.”
Executives with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, where they man was treated, say that despite a nurse using an Ebola checklist to diagnose the man, the patient was allowed to go home because the first team that assessed him felt he had "a low-grade common viral disease.”
