GALVESTON, Texas: Some of the dozens of people who are being watched for possible exposure to Ebola in the United States are expected to be cleared today, potentially easing concerns about the spread of the disease after two nurses were infected.
A Dallas lab worker who spent much of a Caribbean holiday cruise in isolation tested negative for the deadly virus and left the Carnival Magic liner with other passengers after it docked at Galveston, Texas, early yesterday morning.
The precautions taken for the cruise passenger reflected widespread anxiety over Ebola in the United States, including calls from some lawmakers for a travel ban on West Africa.
The worst outbreak on record of the virus, which is spread by contact with bodily fluids of sick people, has killed more than 4,500 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf urged yesterday stronger international action to bring the epidemic under control, saying the disease was unleashing an economic catastrophe that will leave a “lost generation” of young West Africans.
In the United States, the first person to be diagnosed with the disease was Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian who fell ill while visiting Dallas last month. He died on October 8, and two nurses who treated him were infected. This triggered a lengthy watch list of people who had had possible contact with them.
At midnight, some 48 people who might have been in contact with Duncan will no longer require monitoring for signs of the virus, health officials say.
Today, more were expected to end 21 days of monitoring — the incubation period for the virus.
They would include Duncan’s fiancee, Louise Troh, her 13-year-old son and two other people who have been in mandatory quarantine at an undisclosed location in Dallas.
“They will be free to go ... It will expire for them at midnight tonight and that’s going to be a good thing for those families who’ve been through so much and we’re very happy about that,” Clay Jenkins, Dallas County’s top official, said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” There are still 75 health workers in Dallas who have isolated themselves and are being monitored.
The lab worker who was being monitored aboard the Carnival Magic worked at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Duncan was treated. The ship arrived at Galveston after a weeklong cruise that included being denied docking by Belize and Mexico because of the presence of the woman on board. “It was scary. It was really very worrying,” said passenger Regina Sargent of Dallas.
The lab worker, who has not been named, did not have contact with Duncan, but was under observation as she might have come into contact with test samples from him. She voluntarily isolated herself in her cabin and her blood sample was flown by helicopter for testing. “The lab testing done was negative,” said Coast Guard Lieutenant Sam Danus.
Officials in Dallas, where nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson were infected, have urged residents to stay calm. “This is a critical weekend,” said Jenkins. If there are no new patients, he said, Dallas is “going to be statistically less likely” to see new cases.
Reuters
KIEV: War-weary Ukrainians pick a powerful new parliament next Sunday set to be dominated by pro-Western and nationalist forces who will determine if President Petro Poroshenko can make peace with the Kremlin while holding on to the separatist east.
But it will be a vote held on a war footing in which millions of ethnic Russians in Ukraine will not be able to cast ballots because their lands have been either annexed by the Kremlin or seized by pro-Moscow militants.
And it will be quickly followed by another poll called by insurgents in the mainly Russian-speaking eastern rustbelt whose battle against government forces has killed 3,700 people and left Ukraine in economic ruins.
“The main issue of this election is war and peace,” said Volodymyr Fesenko of Kiev’s Penta political research institute.
The rival elections are the latest act in a historic and bloody drama played out at warp speed across the culturally splintered nation on the European Union’s outer frontier.
Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych’s rejection of a deal with the European Union last November sparked months of street unrest that culminated in the shooting of nearly 100 people and the ousting of the ruling elite.
But the Kremlin’s subsequent seizure of Crimea and alleged backing of the eastern revolt triggered a Cold War-style confrontation between Moscow and the West.
Poroshenko hopes the October 26 vote will give him the mandate to follow through on a hotly disputed peace plan he agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September after a string of catastrophic battlefield defeats.
The pro-Western chocolate baron is hoping the truce deal will enable vital industries that have stood shuttered amid the daily shellings to resume production and help stir Ukraine’s imploding economy back to life.
But fears that Poroshenko was effectively caving into the Kremlin by offering rebels limited self-rule in return for peace have spurred the hopes of nationalist parties which reject talks with Russia.
Poroshenko “faces significant scepticism over the peace process from the public and centre-right parties,” the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy warned.
A dizzying 29 parties—none formally representing the ousted regime—will be contesting seats in the 450-seat chamber whose powers will include the right to name the prime minister and most of the cabinet.
“For the first time since independence, a pro-European majority has emerged in the electorate,” said Vadym Karasyov of Kiev’s Institute of Global Strategies.
The president’s eponymous Petro Poroshenko Bloc is leading opinion polls but lacks the majority needed to form a government.
AFP
