Ebola watch list shrinks as US authorities ratchet up response

The first group of people monitored for Ebola in the United States will clear the three-week observation period midnight Sunday, with none exhibiting symptoms, as the federal authorities and Pentagon are ratcheting up responses to fight the deadly disease.
More than 200 people in the country are on the watch list for potentially coming into contact with three confirmed Ebola patients, namely a Liberian visitor and two nurses who treated him.
The Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, was the one who brought the virus to the U.S. from West Africa. He arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20, fell ill several days later and began showing Ebola symptoms on Sept. 24. He went to hospital the second day but was neglected even though he reported his travel history. Duncan was sent to the same hospital on Sept. 28 and never walked out of it.
Duncan's diagnosis was confirmed on Sept. 30 and he became the first Ebola patient diagnosed on U.S. soil. He died on Oct. 8.
WATCH LIST SHRINKS
Health authorities have identified 48 people in Dallas who had contact, direct or indirect, with Duncan between Sept. 24 and Sept. 28.
The list includes four family members of Duncan, several emergency crews who rushed him to the hospital, among others. They are deemed to be high risk as they had close contact with Duncan. Others on the list are those who had contact with them in turn.
The 48 people, who have been placed under daily check, will have their 21-day quarantine closed midnight Sunday, with no one showing any signs or symptoms during the Ebola's incubation period.
Duncan's family said in a statement on Sunday, "we are so happy this is coming to an end, and we are so grateful that none of us has shown any sign of illness."
Dallas authorities are expected to officially declare the 48 people clear of Ebola on Monday, marking a watershed in the city's efforts to contain the spread of the disease, though two nurses who cared for Duncan have fallen victim to the virus.
The two nurses are among 77 medical staffers at Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas who were involved in treating Duncan. Other 75 people have been monitored for Ebola after the two nurses tested positive for the virus. None of them has shown signs of symptoms so far.
Though it is still unclear how exactly the two female nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson, contracted the virus, they are believed to get infected during the first 48 hours, the span of time between Duncan's admittance into the hospital on Sept. 28 and his confirmed diagnosed on Sept. 30.
Several people who possibly had contact with the two nurses are on the watch list. More than 100 others, who shared a flight with Vinson from Ohio to Dallas on Monday, are also being monitored though experts say their likelihood of being infected is very low.
Vinson was having a slight fever -- an early sign of Ebola -- before boarding the Frontier flight, and she reportedly asked permission from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This has put the CDC under fire, prompting a national outcry and sending fears across the state border of Texas.
The Ebola scare has locked a hospital worker inside a cruise cabin offshore for days. The worker, who did not have contact with Duncan but with his blood sample, incited panic on the cruise ship travelling on the Caribbean sea. It was denied docking by Belize and Mexico along its way.
The ship finally returned to a port in south Texas Sunday -- a day after a helicopter landed on it to pick up a blood sample from the worker. News from the CDC came that the worker tested negative for Ebola and that she will be cleared of the disease also on Monday.
CDC TO REVISE GUIDELINES
The CDC is soon expected to update its guidelines for health care workers treating Ebola patients, officials said on Sunday, amid criticism that safety protocols for Ebola treatment are insufficient and inconsistent.
The new guidance, modeled after a World Health Organization guideline, will be more stringent and will set a firmer standard in protecting health care workers.
It will call for full-body suits and hoods that protect worker's necks, set rigorous rules for removal of equipment and disinfection of hands, and call for a "site manager" to supervise the putting on and taking off of equipment, an unidentified official told the Associated Press.
The CDC earlier said a "breach of protocol" led to the infections, but the agency and the Dallas hospital have so far failed to pinpoint the exact cause.
A nurse working at Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas told CNN that the hospital failed to provide adequate equipment to workers when they were treating Duncan. They said they were laying their neck bare in the protective suit and that the two infected nurses probably contracted the virus in that way.
PENTAGON JOINS IN
The U.S. Department of Defense on Sunday announced its own Ebola plan. The military is creating a 30-member team which will be tasked with providing emergency assistance in case there might be more cases of Ebola virus infection in the country.
DOD spokesman John Kirby said in a statement that the step has been taken at the request by the country's Department of Health and Human Services, stressing the team will stand ready to "respond quickly, effectively, and safely" in the event of more Ebola cases.
The statement said that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has instructed the chief of U.S. Northern Command to prepare and train "20 critical care nurses, five doctors trained in infectious disease and five trainers in infectious disease protocols."
After receiving up to one week of very specific instruction at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, the team will then be prepared to deploy if ever needed to cities across the country.
The team would not be sent to West Africa or other overseas location, and would "be called upon domestically only if deemed prudent by our public health professionals," Kirby said.