Ebola update: Dallas officials say 'crucial week' for containment

Officials in Dallas gave an update today on their investigation and containment processes connected with the first Ebola case diagnosed in the U.S., calling it a "crucial week" for people who have had direct contact with the patient.

Dallas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan remains in critical condition. A spokeswoman for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas said on Monday that Duncan is receiving an experimental drug for the disease. The drug, called brincidofovir, was developed by Chimerix Inc.

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​Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner, was asked whether Duncan would have benefited from earlier treatment with the drug.

"I just can't answer whether or not that would have helped him. We just don't know with these experimental drugs, how well they work."

​Lakey spoke about the people who are being monitored because of their contact with Duncan.

"There are 48 individuals that we are watching closely," said Lakey. "All these individuals are being checked for fever twice a day. There are no sightings of fever or illness so far." 

He cautioned that this was a "crucial week" for people who have had direct contact with Duncan. Symptoms of Ebola tend to show up eight to 10 days after being in contact with an infected person.

​Dallas officials also said they have been in touch with community groups and churches in the area where Duncan had been staying and co-ordinating an information campaign in several languages.

Duncan became ill after arriving in Texas from Liberia two weeks ago, heightening concerns that the worst Ebola epidemic on record could spread from West Africa, where it began in March.

Dallas officials on Monday also announced that all of Duncan's possessions had been destroyed and many materials from the apartment have been put into "containment barrels."

Also on Monday, a private plane carrying Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman for NBC News who contracted Ebola in Liberia, landed in Omaha en route to the Nebraska Medical Center, NBC reported. 

The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — of an infected person who is showing symptoms.

It has killed more than 3,400 people since it began in West Africa in December and has now begun spreading faster, infecting almost 7,500 people so far.