By Bob Allen
Dallas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was coming to America to get married and start a new life with a woman baptized this summer as a member of Wilshire Baptist Church, the church’s pastor, George Mason, said in an email to church members forwarded to ABPnews/Herald.
“I’m writing today to let you know that, sadly, there is a Wilshire connection to the Dallas Ebola case,” Mason said. “One of our own members and her family need our intensive prayer, as the patient identified in the first case of Ebola in the United States is a relative of theirs.”
Louise Troh, a native of Liberia being confined in isolation with other family members because of possible exposure to the disease, was baptized as a member of Wilshire on June 29. She joined and was warmly received by the Open Bible Class, a large group of senior adults 60 and older.
“I have spoken with Louise by phone this morning and learned that Thomas Eric Duncan, who currently is hospitalized in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, came to Dallas to marry Louise and start a new life in America,” Mason said.
Mason asked church members to pray both for Duncan, who, according to ABC News, as of Friday morning had grown too weak to talk to his family on the phone, and for Troh and members of her extended family in isolation under direction of the Centers for Disease Control until any threat of infection with Ebola has passed.
“You can imagine how frightening this must be for all of them, mixed with the sadness of Mr. Duncan’s diagnosis,” Mason said. “Please join me in praying for God’s mercy and peace to fall upon each of them and for God’s healing.”
Mason said there is no reason to believe anyone else at Wilshire was exposed to Ebola. Mason said none of Duncan’s family and friends has attended Wilshire since his arrival in the United States on Sept. 20. Unlike other viruses like the flu, Ebola is not communicable until symptoms are present and is spread only through direct contact with blood or body fluids.
Mason said members of the Open Bible Class “are doing everything they can to find appropriate ways to be supportive, but there are obvious limits due to the quarantine.”
Troh told the Associated Press Oct. 2 she is tired of being locked up and waiting for health authorities to decontaminate her home.
Officials in Liberia said if he survives, they plan to prosecute Duncan for answering “no” on a questionnaire if he had contacted anyone infected after helping a woman who later died from Ebola, though it is unclear he knew what she had. The Associated Press quoted local sources who said at the time the woman’s illness was believed to be pregnancy related.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas drew criticism after sending Duncan home when he first showed up in the emergency room on Sept. 25. Officials said Duncan told staff he had recently been to Africa, but the information didn’t show up in doctors’ records because of an error in electronic record keeping.
Officials say Duncan may have had contact with as many as 100 people before he returned to the same hospital Sept. 28 and was admitted in isolation as a potential Ebola patient.
Duncan’s is the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States, but on Friday a patient with Ebola-like symptoms was admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington as a precaution.
Earlier this week Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance journalist, tested positive for Ebola in Monrovia, Liberia, making him the fourth American to contract Ebola since the outbreak began in West Africa this spring.
The other three — missionary nurse Nancy Writebol, Dr. Kent Brantly of Samaritan’s Purse and Massachusetts physician Dr. Richard Sacra — all returned to the U.S., where they were treated and later released.
Related commentary:
In his commentary “Ebola ignorance” Mark Wingfield notes that as the deadly virus appears in the U.S., the church must be both the voice of God’s compassion and the voice of reason.