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Reports: Tests Show NO Ebola in Yale-New Haven Patient with Ebola-Like Symptoms

Various reports say the medical student with a slight fever and just back from Liberia does not have the deadly virus.

This story is updated continually as new information comes in.

Click here for a round-up of articles and tweets on the Yale-New Haven Hospital patient found with ebola-like symptoms.

By Rich Scinto (Patch Staff) and By David Gurliacci (Patch Staff)

Find out what's happening in East Havenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Update 4:54 p.m.:

Tests show that a medical student suspected of having an Ebola infection does not in fact have the contagious disease, according to numerous reports late Thursday afternoon.

Find out what's happening in East Havenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Earlier in the day, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said that if the initial test indicated the patient does not have Ebola, that is considered conclusive. A positive result, however, would need confirmation with a second test, he said.

Here’s a summary of what we know so far:

The student was isolated at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where the patient’s condition is good and improving, hospital officials said at a midday Thursday news conference.

“I would say that the patient is in stable condition, in good condition,” Dr. Thomas Balcezak, the hospital’s chief medical officer, said at a news conference. By mid-day Thursday, the patient was better off than the previous night, a hospital official said.

The student, who had just returned from Liberia with another student, reported a slight fever on Wednesday, so hospital staff donned biohazard suits and adopted procedures for possible Ebola cases.

For instance, the student (whose gender hasn’t been made public), is in a room where air circulates only with air outside the building. The hospital is trying to limit the number of health-care workers having any contact with the patient.

Initial test results were expected back within 24 hours, hospital officials said.

Hospital and state officials have said over and over again that the elaborate safety measures taken with the patient have been made out of “an abundance of caution.” For instance, Yale-New Haven officials don’t think the air-circulation measures for the patient’s room are necessary.

The second student who returned from Liberia earlier this week has shown no symptoms of Ebola, officials said. Neither of the students were in contact with people displaying symptoms of Ebola in Liberia, although one person they were in contact with was later diagnosed with the disease, according to a Yale-New Haven official.

Malloy announced that the state has been making sure hospitals and ambulance workers are prepared to handle possible Ebola cases. The state Public Health Department has been questioning all acute-care hospitals in the state to make sure they’re ready, and within seven days, each hospital has been ordered to conduct a drill to prepare for Ebola care.

Hospital and state officials have said nothing that might identify the patient or the other student, including their ages, genders or whether or not either is married.

Some work has been done by public health officials in finding and talking with people who were in contact with either medical student back from Liberia, Malloy said. More of that would be done if the patient is found to have Ebola, he said.

Update 3:46 p.m.:

By 4 p.m., state officials expect to get test initial results on whether the Yale medical student with a possible case of Ebola actually has the virus, according to a report on Cablevision News 12.

Video from the Yale-New Haven news conference earlier today is now added at the bottom of this article.

Update 3:15 p.m.:

Gov. Dannel Malloy and Connecticut Public Health Commissioner Jewel Mullen have issued this guidance to people who think they may have Ebola.

The guidance, in part of a news release from the Governor’s Office, discusses isolation and quarantine measures the state will use when doctors or health officials believe someone has a good chance of Ebola infection:

Today, the Governor and the Commissioner are issuing the following guidance, which is more stringent than the guidelines thus far issued by the Federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): If you become sick with a fever a fever with and/or any of the symptoms of Ebola virus disease such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and you:

  • Have traveled to Liberia, Sierra Leone, or Guinea in the last 21 days, or
  • Have had contact with a person who has Ebola virus disease.

You will be sent to a hospital for evaluation and placed in room separate from other patients – this is called isolation.If you are not sick, but have traveled to affected areas or been in contact with an infected individual, you will be required to stay at home for 21 days and take your temperature twice a day.

Public heath health workers will contact you twice a day by phone to see how you are doing. This is called quarantine. If you develop a fever or other symptoms suggestive of Ebola virus during the time that you are required to be home, you will be sent to a hospital for evaluation and placed in room separate from other patients.

“The first responder community continues to monitor the current situation and prepare for any potential threat to public safety or health using their established protocols,” said Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner Dora B. Schriro. “We are at the ready to assist and support our local partners in this critical state-wide effort.”

According to the CDC:

  • You can’t get Ebola though air
  • You can’t get Ebola through water
  • You can’t get Ebola through food.

You can only get Ebola from:

  • Touching the blood or body fluids of a person who is sick or has died from Ebola
  • Touching contaminated objects, like needles
  • Touching infected animals, their blood or other body fluids or their meat.

Update 3:07 p.m.:

New Haven city officials were notified around 9 p.m. that a patient with possible Ebola symptoms needed to be transported to Yale-New Haven Hospital for treatment, said Rick Fontana deputy director of emergency operations for New Haven.

Hospital staff and city officials met at the Yale emergency room to discuss the safe transport of the patient, Fontana said. The Fire Department hazardous materials team participated in the transport and a specially-outfitted ambulance transported the patient.

All personnel went above and beyond U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidelines for transport, Fontana said.


Update 2:59 p.m.:

When initial test results come back for the Yale-New Haven Hospital patient suspected of having the Ebola virus, it should be able to tell everyone if the patient does not have Ebola, but if the test is positive, a second test will be needed to confirm that, Gov. Dannel Malloy said at a Thursday afternoon news conference.

“If the first test comes back negative, it’s negative,” Malloy said. “If the first test comes back positive, there’s a second test we have to take to come up with a positive diagnosis.”

Malloy spoke at a 2 p.m. news conference that lasted about 30 minutes. The governor said the state officials have been active in preparing for possible Ebola cases in Connecticut and have just taken more steps to keep the state prepared.

Within the next seven days, the governor said, all hospitals in the state, including their ambulance staffs, have been directed to perform a drill on practices and procedures to take if someone comes to the hospital and is deemed to have a chance of being infected with Ebola.

“I would hope they [hospitals] would do it within the next 48 hours,” Malloy said.

All hospital chief executive officers in the state have been directed to complete a check-off list to tell the state Public Health Department that they have equipment and have made other preparations to handle Ebola cases, said Public Health Commissioner Jewel Mullen.

Asked whether or not public health officials were trying to get in touch with those in close contact with the patient with suspected Ebola symptoms or the other Yale medical school students who went to Liberia, Malloy said “there has been some of that, and if there is reason to do more of that [...] that will be done.”

But the governor indicated it is still premature to look for those people in a more active way: “If there’s reason to take it to the next step, we’re absolutely prepared for that, and we will undertake that [...] but we don’t even have a diagnosed case at this point,” he said.

Hospitals have told the Public Health Department that they have enough biohazard suits, Mullen said.

In Bridgeport there may a patient who is being treated in an isolation unit, but there is no suspicion of Ebola there, Malloy said in response to a question.

Malloy and Mullen pointed out that possible symptoms of Ebola are much like symptoms of other, much less serious diseases: headaches, nausea, stomach discomfort, diarrhea.

Malloy said that most people can ”self-evaluate” whether or not they have a chance of having Ebola by asking themselves if they’ve been to the three countries in West Africa where the disease is more prevalent — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — or if they’ve been in close contact with someone else who has been there. If not, the chances of having Ebola are extremely remote. But if so, that person should report to a hospital.

The governor said he’s set up a “unified command team” to coordinate information about Ebola to the public and to make sure health workers have been adequately trained to treat people with the disease (or who are suspected of having it).

Update 1:57 p.m.:

Officials at the news conference Thursday about the possible Ebola case at Yale-New Haven Hospital didn’t have answers for some questions about the patient and another student who also recently returned from Liberia.

Who is the medical student who traveled to Liberia and later developed symptoms that may indicate he or she has contracted Ebola? Yale -New Haven Hospital officials, citing patient confidentiality, refuse to say.

Who is the other student who went on the same trip? Are either of them a man or a woman? Are they married? Do they have children who might have passed the virus along to others? Hospital officials will say nothing that might identify the patient or the other student.

What are authorities doing to get in touch and possibly monitor anyone in contact with the student now admitted to the hospital? That’s a question for state or local public health officials, the hospital officials said.

Update 1:51 p.m.:

The patient exhibiting symptoms of possible Ebola virus probably doesn’t have it, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp said Thursday at a news conference at Yale-New Haven Hospital, but a Yale official said he wouldn’t go that far.

Harp said that after speaking with (unnamed) health officials, “We don’t believe, in thinking it htrough, that it will actually be an Ebola case.”

Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief medical officer of the hospital, was asked later in the news conference whether he would confirm Harp’s statement. He replied, “I would say that the patient is in stable condition, in good condition. Beyond that, I’m not willing to speculate.”

Balcezak said preliminary test results are expected within about 24 hours.

Update 1:20 p.m.

Yale-New Haven hospital officials say the patient with Ebola-like symptoms is doing well, and they’re waiting for test results that may come in within 24 hours to confirm whether the patient has the disease.

At a 23-minute news conference in New Haven, Chief Medical Officer Thomas Balcezak said the patient, a medical student just returned from Liberia, had been monitoring his or herself (no hospital official would identify even the gender of the patient, let alone the patient’s name or other identifying information).

When the patient discovered a mild fever, he or she notified the primary care provider who then notified Yale-New Haven, which was able to react quickly, Balcezak said.

When admitted, “the patient was stable and in a good position,” Balcezak said. “They [the patient] remain in good condition.”

Hospital doctors “expect preliminary results sometime in the next 24 hours,” he said. “We’re hoping sooner.” The hospital will announce the results quickly after receiving them, he said.

Since being admitted to the hospital, the patient has had a “low-grade temperature,” one hospital official said. “Their condition has improved since admittance, and they’re quite stable.”

Balcezak said the Ebola treatment facility set up at the hospital is ”absolutely adequate” for patients with the disease. The hospital is trying to limit the number of physicians, nurses or anyone else in contact with the patient. Two physicians have been assigned to the patient on a rotating basis, along with two nurses at any one time.

One nurse will put on and take off a biohazard suit as another nurse observes to make sure both procedures are done correctly, he said. Nurses will rotate, however, and Balcezak was not prepared to say just how many Yale-New Haven personnel will be working with the patient.

The two Yale medical students who traveled to Liberia ”had no contact with patients who were actively [suffering from] Ebola,” said Dr. Robert J. Alpern, dean of the Yale School of Medicine.

Later at the news conference, Alpern added, that the students “did have contact with one person who eventually developed Ebola, but he didn’t know it [at the time of contact] and wasn’t symptomatic [at that point].”

The School of Medicine will have very severe restrictions on official involvement with sending anyone to the countries where Ebola has been most rampant, Alpern said, although with no travel restrictions, anyone is free to go on their own. For Yale School of Medicine to send someone, he said, “Their skills really need to be required by the community in West Africa, and there needs to be a sponsoring organization [that can monitor what the visitors would be doing].”

Update 12:28 p.m.

The media is gathering for a 12:30 p.m. press conference. (Photo by Rich Scinto)

Update 12:07 p.m.:

The patient with possible Ebola symptoms was one of two Yale medical students who traveled to Liberia last month and returned on Saturday, according to a noon report on WNTH-TV which cited an official spokesman.

The two students were in “voluntary sequestration” since their return, according to the report.

The two students were in Liberia to help with computer tracking systems for the disease. The condition of the other student is not known at this time, the report said.

Original article:

Safety workers in hazardous material suits have descended on yet another U.S. medical facility, this time at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where a patient has shown symptoms of the Ebola virus that has killed more than 4,000 people in Africa and has begun to spread in small numbers in the United States.

‘Yale-New Haven Hospital admitted a patient late Wednesday night for evaluation of Ebola-like symptoms. We have not confirmed or ruled-out any diagnosis at this point. We are working in cooperation with City, State and Federal health officials. There is no further information available at this time.’ — Hospital statement

News about the patient spread through the medical community and on social media, especially after pictures were posted of the New Haven Fire Department hazardous material teams suiting up outside of the hospital entrance, according to the New Haven Register.

The hospital practiced an emergency drill recently on steps to take to properly isolate an Ebola patient.

WTNH reports that a source told the network that the patient is one of the Yale researchers who returned from Liberia on Monday. It also reports the hospital is working with the CDC to have the patient tested for Ebola.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued stricter guidelines to American hospitals with Ebola patients after hospital workers in Texas were exposed to the disease while treating a patient, according to the New York Times.

The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history and is affecting countries mainly in West Africa, according to the CDC. The agency confirmed the first travel-associated case of Ebola in the United States on Sept. 30. The patient died Oct. 8.

A healthcare worker at Texas Presbyterian Hospital who provided care to the patient reported symptoms on Oct. 10 and tested positive for the virus later. A second healthcare worker tested positive after showing symptoms on Oct. 14.

The CDC has enhanced screening at five major U.S. airports that receive more than 94 percent of travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

President Barack Obama canceled a planned trip to Connecticut Wednesday to have a meeting about Ebola.

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