No Ebola in Second Suspected Case

As friends and family mourned Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan, there was some good news. Ebola tests done on a Dallas County Sherriff’s deputy came back negative.

exas Health Presbyterian,

The Texas State Department of Health made the announcement Oct. 9. The patient, identified as Michael Monnig, had briefly visited the apartment where Duncan was staying and on Oct. 8 was admitted to T the hospital where Duncan died that same day.

The hospital released a statement saying it staff was relieved for Monnig’s family and friends that the test results had come back negative and that testing had been completed quickly.

US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officials said on Oct. 8 that it was unlikely Monnig had contracted Ebola and that he had been admitted as a precaution.

Officials continue to monitor the health of 48 people believed to have had contact with Duncan, but Monnig was not one of them.

The news that Monnig had been hospitalized added to the tension in the Dallas area, where both physicians and the public were alarmed that Duncan had died despite receiving care in an isolation unit in a US hospital.

Monnig had been serving a county health department order on people in the apartment where Duncan had stayed. It required them not to leave the premises out of fear they might have the virus and spread it. Because he later felt ill with abdominal pain, Monnig went to an urgent care center CareNow, in nearby Frisco, TX.

That center was later closed and decontaminated and is due to reopen Oct. 10.

Duncan, a driver for Safeway Cargo, a Liberian affiliate of FedEx, had traveled to the Dallas area to reunite with the mother of his son. He contracted the virus in Monrovia, Liberia, apparently on Sept 15 when he helped transport a 19-year-old neighbor to a hospital there.

The young woman was turned away from that hospital. Duncan helped carry her back into her home where within hours she died of Ebola. Friends said he later told them he did realize the woman had Ebola.

Duncan became ill shortly after his Sept. 20 arrival in Texas, but on Sept. 25 when he sought treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital he got only outpatient care. On Sept 28 he was sick enough to be admitted to the hospital. On Sept. 30 tests confirmed he had Ebola.