Schoolchildren in US being monitored after contact with Ebola patient

Schoolchildren in Texas are being monitored after coming into contact with the first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola on US soil.

At a news conference at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas governor Rick Perry, said the children were being monitored “at home” for symptoms.
The patient is thought to have contracted the virus in Liberia before coming to the US nearly two weeks ago and is in a serious condition. Symptoms became apparent in the patient on September 24, and on September 28 he was admitted to a Texas hospital and put in isolation.
“Parents are extremely concerned about that development. These children have been identified and they are being monitored.”
Mr Perry emphasised the disease could not be transmitted before a patient showed signs of the disease, and he said Texas had the medical infrastructure to prevent an outbreak.
“The public should have every confidence that the highly trained professional will succeed in this very important mission,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Liberia a government spokesman said the country had put in place “stringent screening” at the airport, where the man showed no symptoms or fever as he departed the country.
“What this incident demonstrates is the clear international dimension of this Ebola crisis,” Lewis Brown, the country’s information minister, said in a statement.