Texas health officials have ordered four close family members of the Ebola patient Thomas Duncan in Dallas to stay in their home and have posted police outside to ensure they do Up to 100 people may have had contact with the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the US, and four people were quarantined in a Dallas apartment where sheets and other items used by the man were put in sealed plastic bags to prevent infection. Texas officials are delivering groceries to the home and are preparing to have it professionally cleaned. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said the Ebola patient's belongings and clothes and household trash, possibly including his sheets, are bagged inside the house so the family members cannot come into contact with them until they are removed. Health officials said on Thursday that 12 to 18 people had direct contact with the patient, who flew to Texas from Liberia via Brussels and Washington two weeks ago, and they in turn had contact with scores of others. None of those thought to have had contact with the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, were showing symptoms of Ebola, Dallas County officials said at a news conference. Mr Duncan had been staying in an apartment in the northeastern part of the city for about a week before going to a Dallas hospital. Ebola can cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea and spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva. It has killed at least 3,338 people in Liberia and two other impoverished West African countries, Guinea and Sierra Leone, in the worst such outbreak since the disease was identified in 1976. In Liberia, the head of the country's airport authority, Binyah Kesselly, said the government could prosecute Mr Duncan for denying he had contact with someone who was eventually diagnosed with Ebola. Four days before he left Monrovia he helped a pregnant neighbour who was suffering from stomach pains, taking her to hospital in a taxi and carrying her. The woman, Marthalene Williams, 19, had Ebola and died the following day at home after there was no room for her at the hospital. Four other people who had come into contact with her, including her brother, also died. Get the latest headlines http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Subscribe to The Telegraph http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=telegraphtv Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/telegraph.co.uk Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/telegraph Follow us on Google+ https://plus.google.com/102891355072777008500/ Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Daily Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.

• published: 02 Oct 2014
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