The Ebola situation both in the U.S. and abroad continues to be a moving and continually developing target. Here are a few things to catch you up on heading into Wednesday:
1) Liberian in isolation after flying into Newark: A Liberian man who flew from West Africa to Brussels to Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey, just outside of New York City, was taken to the hospital for evaluation "as if he has Ebola" Tuesday, WNBC-TV reported. This news came the same day the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would require out travelers coming out of Ebola-stricken countries to pass through one of the five U.S. airports that have instituted added screening measures, Newark being one of them.
Masked customs officers look on during a screening area for international passengers. (AP/Northjersey.com, Viorel Florescu)
According to WNBC, the man's travel history was discussed when he was passing through customs and it was found that he had a fever at the time. The patient is in isolation at the hospital monitoring him.
2) Health status: Two American Ebola patients who were brought back to the U.S. for care were discharged this week as Ebola free. One was an unnamed patient who was cared for at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. The second, NBC photojournalist Ashoka Mukpo who was treated at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, will be released today.
Nina Pham, one of the Texas Presbyterian Health Dallas nurses who tested positive for Ebola after caring for the since-deceased patient Thomas Eric Duncan, has been upgraded from fair to good at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, where she was transferred last week. The status of the second nurse to test positive, Amber Vinson, at Emory is unknown at this time.
3) Vaccine testing ramps up: Two potential Ebola vaccines — one by Johnson & Johnson, the other by GlaxoSmithKline — could begin testing in Africa in January. Both companies expect their vaccine to start trials in the West Africa countries hardest hit by the viral outbreak, which has no specific drug treatment or previous vaccine.
Johnson & Johnson says it will start safety testing in early January on a potential vaccine combination that could protect against a strain of the deadly Ebola virus. (AP/Matt Rourke, )
Testing will go forward only if vaccines prove safe and trigger an adequate immune-system response in volunteers during clinical trials that are either underway or planned in Europe, Africa and the United States.
Another vaccine being tested was developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada. According to NPR, it was most recently sent to the U.S. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research where it is being tested on volunteers.
4) T-minus six months: A top Red Cross official said he is confident the Ebola epidemic can be contained within four to six months. The secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Elhadj As Sy, said at news conference in Beijing on Wednesday that the time frame is possible if there is "good isolation, good treatment of the cases which are confirmed, good dignified and safe burials of deceased people."
Health workers wears protective gears before entering the house of a person suspected to have died of the Ebola virus in Port Loko Community situated on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014. (AP/Michael Duff)
The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,500 people since it emerged 10 months ago. Most of the deaths have been in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
