FORT WORTH, Texas — Fourteen people who had contact with Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan have completed their surveillance and others on the watch list are expected to come off Sunday and Monday, officials said Saturday.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said “this is a critical weekend” in the Ebola outbreak because if no new cases are reported, the region is “statistically less likely to see more cases.”
Among those expected to come off the list Monday are Louis Troh, the woman Duncan had flown to Dallas to marry, and the three children who were with her and Duncan in the apartment.
Duncan arrived in Dallas from Liberia on Sept. 20, became ill on Sept. 24 and died from the Ebola virus on Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas. Two nurses who cared for Duncan, Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson, contracted the virus and are being treated at hospitals in Bethesda, Md., and Atlanta.
As of 5 p.m. Friday, 159 people had been or were being monitored for contact or possible contact with one of three Ebola patients, related to the Dallas outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 11 are known contacts and 148 are possible contacts. It is not clear how many of those possible contacts are in North Texas and how many are in Ohio, where Vinson flew last weekend.
Officials in Ohio announced Saturday afternoon that 116 people were being monitored in that state for Ebola symptoms.
Of the 14 who have cleared the 21-day incubation period for the virus, four had definite contact with Duncan and 10 had possible contact, according to the CDC.
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