I keep seeing comments asserting Thomas Eric Duncan knew he had contact with an Ebola victim and lied about it to enter the US. And I saw the NY Times story that seems to corroborate this version. However, I originally read the following article written by the West Africa Correspondent for the Associated Press. This article presents a completely different take on what Mr. Duncan, and friends and family, thought at the time he assisted the woman he eventually contracted Ebola from. It's not definitive that he didn't know he had contact with an Ebola victim at the time he traveled, but the article presents information that indicates it is likely he really didn't know.
A couple of main points from the article Many Sick in US Ebola Patient's Hometown.
1) Everyone who helped Marthalene Williams assumed her illness was pregnancy related.
Thomas Eric Duncan rushed to help his 19-year-old neighbor when she began convulsing days after complaining of stomach pain. Everyone assumed her illness was related to her being seven months pregnant.
When no ambulance came, Duncan, Marthalene Williams' parents and several others lifted her into a taxi, and Duncan rode in the front seat as the cab took Williams to the hospital. She later died.
2) Considering that everyone in that area is now so scared they will not even comfort a 9 year old girl, I find it likely that #1 is true. If they had suspected she had Ebola, I don't think so many would have rushed to help her.
In the neighborhood where Williams lived, some people were no longer willing to take any risks Thursday, not after seeing what happened to those who showed compassion for the pregnant woman.
As 9-year-old Mercy Kennedy sobbed along with neighbors mourning news of her mother's death, not a person would touch the little girl to comfort her.
3) Marthalene Williams appears to be the first person living in this area to have been infected and family, friends, and neighbors were infected because no one suspected Ebola until many more people fell sick and started dying. As she was the first infected and was not diagnosed right away, it is impossible to tell if Duncan knew of her diagnosis at the time of his travel. More than 100 people went to her wake and how many could have touched her body is impossible to say.
All the cases, including Duncan's, appear to have started with Williams, though some wondered how a pregnant woman who stayed at home could have contracted Ebola. Maybe it was her boyfriend, who hasn't been seen in weeks, they said. Or could it have been her close friend known as Baby D, who has since died herself?
Anyway, I can't say for sure what he knew when he traveled, but it seems to me that a lot of people who had contact with Marthalene never suspected Ebola. I know the US mentality is hard to get out of, after all we live here so duh, but try looking at it with consideration towards the circumstances of your average Liberian.
Liberia is ranked 8th in the world for Maternal Mortality with 770 deaths per 100,000 compared to the US rate of 21 out of 100,000. With these numbers, if you lived there, you would probably have known more than a few pregnant women who died from pregnancy. You would probably be very worried that your 7 mo's pregnant friend or family member was having a pregnancy related complication.
Liberia's risk of disease is rated as "very high" by the CIA. Many of the diseases listed present similarly to Ebola. You have heard about malaria and bacterial diseases from drinking water or food all of your life. You have seen people die from these diseases. It is much more common than Ebola. If you came to the US and had a fever after traveling, you might go to a hospital assuming you have any of these rather than consider Ebola, a relatively new threat on your radar. You might assume when the doctor gives you antibiotics and sends you home that they know what they are doing. You might pish posh when your American nephew suggests Ebola two days later. You probably would have screamed EBOLA EBOLA in the hospital if you suspected you were infected with it.
Major infectious diseases:
degree of risk: very high
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever
vectorborne diseases: malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever
water contact disease: schistosomiasis
aerosolized dust or soil contact disease: Lassa fever
animal contact disease: rabies (2013)
Finally, consider how many ignorant, uninformed, and misinformed people we have in the United States, the virulently wrong people and the just clueless, not paying attention people. Why anyone would assume other countries don't share in this problem is a mystery to me. If Ebola were to strike here in force, you would have tons of people, going to work, traveling, infecting everyone else without ever a thought they might have Ebola. Why?
Because they didn't know the first symptoms are flu-like.
They never imagined THEY could ever catch Ebola.
They thought you immediately bleed from your eyes or something.
Or they thought the friend they helped was just hungover when he vomited, or that you couldn't catch Ebola from vomit, it's only transmitted through anal sex or blood transfusion, like with HIV.
(Yes, I know this is not true about HIV, but I have actually had someone say this to me)
We would have people who knew they were sick and went to church to pray it away and ministers who encouraged them.
Rush Limbaugh would sell a new book about the Cure for Ebola being complete isolation from the rest of the world.
People would walk around wearing masks, but feel fine touching doorknobs and handrails without gloves and then rubbing their eyes.
Aquafina would be touting the safety of their bottled water as if you could catch Ebola from your tap water and people would run to the nearest Walmart hustle to get online and buy 60 cases of water.
Some charlatan would have a commercial on fox (right after the cash for gold commercial) marketing a sugar/vitamin pill as a new, secret cure for Ebola that the government and pharmaceutical companies don't want you to know about.
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