Officials in Washington revealed that there are 'about 100' individuals who may have come in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the first diagnosed Ebola patient in Texas.

Health officials as well as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are closely monitoring a hundred people who may have had contact with Duncan upon his arrival in the country from the Ebola-distraught country of Liberia.

Like Us on Facebook

"We are working from a list of about 100 potential or possible contacts and will soon have an official contact tracing number that will be lower," said Texas Department of State Health Services spokeswoman Carrie Williams adding that they are considering even brief encounters with Duncan 'out of an abundance of caution.'

Director for the Dallas County Health and Human Services Zachary Thompson clarified that these people are not showing any symptoms of the virus explaining that only Duncan's four family members are being closely watched and isolated at the moment.

Initially, Texas health authorities have revealed only about a dozen of people, including five children from the Dallas area, who may have contact with the American Ebola patient.

Meanwhile, a patient, who had recently travelled to the West African country Nigeria, had been confined at the Howard University Hospital after presenting symptoms of Ebola.

The patient's condition has been stabilized though it is still closely monitored by local health officials as well as the CDC.

In Georgia, authorities are also monitoring an inmate at Cobb County Jail who had been reported to have shown symptoms of the disease, but later tested negative of the disease upon receipt of initial blood test results.

"We're striving for perfection, but what we continue to do is redouble our efforts and ... use this as learning experience," the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Beth Bell said in a statement.

So far, the CDC had tested 15 blood samples from possible Ebola patients and found a lone patient, who was later identified to be Duncan.

TagsUS