Liberia To Prosecute U.S. Ebola Patient For Allegedly Lying On Questionnaire

[Barb135]

Liberian officials say they will prosecute Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who was diagnosed in Dallas with Ebola, for allegedly lying on a health questionnaire before boarding a flight out of the country, The Associated Press reports.

Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the board of directors of the Liberia Airport Authority, said Duncan had answered "no" to a question asking whether he had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of anyone who had died in an Ebola-affected area.

"We expect people to do the honorable thing," Kesselly said, according to the AP.

As we wrote on Wednesday, Duncan's neighbors in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, believe he was infected while helping a pregnant woman with Ebola to a hospital.

He arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and showed up at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital days later with nondescript symptoms. There a nurse, who was reportedly following an Ebola checklist, asked Duncan if he'd traveled to or from West Africa. Duncan answered that he had, but that information was not relayed to doctors, so "the full import of that information wasn't factored into the clinical decision-making," Dr. Mark Lester, a hospital official, said Wednesday.

The man was admitted to the same hospital earlier this week, where he was diagnosed with Ebola and placed in isolation.

On Thursday, Texas health officials said about 100 "potential contacts" linked to Duncan were being monitored for symptoms of the disease.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/02/353274722/liberia-to-prosecute-u-s-ebola-patient-for-lying-on-questionnaire
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Yes, I know it's a blog, but similar articles are all over the news; that's just the first one I grabbed.

[Barb135]

They say it can't be spread until you have symptoms and apparently he didn't when he got on the plane, but it sounds like he pretty well knew he had a good chance of getting it.

I didn't see anything that indicated he came here for better treatment; I just figured he didn't want to miss the visit with his family.  He probably will get better treatment, but if he was hoping for a cure or something miraculous, he's out of luck. His own body has to fight the virus and he better hope he's up to it.

I can't see that prosecuting him will do much, unless it does become a deterrent for others.  The  main thing that would become a deterrent will be when they learn that we have nothing to treat it with either, unless they really do have something stockpiled that they can treat certain groups, like the military or Congress, etc with.  

It's unfortunate, but the only way they can stop the spread is to quarantine the people he came into contact with.  If the virus is spread via bodily fluid a sneeze or cough containing saliva, a tissue left laying on a table or urine dribbled on the toilet can be a real game changer.  

[teko]

I was just listening to this on cnn. It sounds to me like he had a pretty good idea he was infected and came here to be treated for a better outcome maybe?

If he had answered yes to either of those two questions, he would not be allowed in for 21 days.

But do we really think that by prosecuting him, that it will keep others from doing the same? I'm not so sure. Obviously the honor system isnt working!

I also heard they quarantined the family into their apartment for 21 days even tho they were showing no symptoms of illness.....

This may be the only case here, but it has been bungled from the get go in how it has been handled imo.