The first Ebola patient in the U.S., 42-year-old Thomas Eric Duncan, has died in isolation at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital after battling the virus for over a week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had confirmed that Duncan was the first Ebola case diagnosed in the United States after traveling from Liberia.
After being diagnosed with Ebola, Duncan has remained in critical condition. His diagnosis, and demise, has started a conversation between policy makers and public health experts about how the United States can protect itself from the virus. CNN reports that airport officials will now be taking temperatures of passengers who enter the country from Ebola zones like Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.
"The 2014 Ebola outbreak is the largest in history and the first Ebola epidemic the world has ever known — affecting multiple countries in West Africa," shares the CDC on their website. "Although the risk of an Ebola outbreak in the United States is very low, CDC and partners are taking precautions to prevent this from happening."
According to the CDC, the symptoms -- which can appear anytime from 2 to 21 days after exposure -- include: fever, severe headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain and hemorrhage. How a patient responds to the virus depends on the individual patient's immune response, reports the CDC. Those who recover from the Ebola infection will have antibodies that will protect them for ten years. Currently, there is no FDA-approved vaccine in the United States. Experts recommend practicing careful hygiene, avoiding contact with blood or bodily fluids, avoiding funerals of someone who has died from Ebola, avoiding contact with bats and non-human primates, avoiding hospitals where Ebola is being treated and to monitor your health after returning from a region with Ebola.
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