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Frisco, Texas patient signs of Ebola –– Dallas Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, has died

Emergency dispatchers in Frisco, Texas, received a call reporting a patient exhibiting signs and symptoms of Ebola Wednesday afternoon, a city official said. Th...
Texas Healthcare Presbyterian Hospital

Emergency dispatchers in Frisco, Texas, received a call reporting a patient exhibiting signs and symptoms of Ebola Wednesday afternoon, a city official said. The patient, who claims to have had contact with a person Frisco spokeswoman Dana Baird referred to as Dallas “patient zero,” is being transported by paramedics.

As Ebola cases rise to staggering numbers, so do the fears and concerns among nations, along with reports of infections in Spain and the United States. U.S. airports will begin taking the temperatures of arriving passengers who have flight itineraries originating from West African countries where Ebola is concentrated, a federal official with direct knowledge of the screenings told CNN Wednesday.

With multiple developments on numerous fronts, here’s what you need to know Wednesday to quickly get caught up on the latest:

WEST AFRICAN CASES

Grim tolls:

To date, the world’s largest outbreak of Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — the nations hardest hit. Since March, more than 7,400 people have contracted Ebola in those nations, according to the World Health Organization. A handful of cases have been reported in Nigeria and Senegal as well. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says infections could reach 1.4 million in four months.

U.S. CASES

Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died Wednesday, according to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas where he was being treated.

Duncan had been on a ventilator and on dialysis for failing kidneys, health officials said earlier.

Duncan received an experimental medicine nearly a week after being admitted into a hospital — a far longer wait than experienced by four other Ebola patients treated in the U.S. The others are Americans; Duncan is Liberian.

NBC cameraman recovering:

NBC cameraman Ashoka Mukpo is “reasonably stable,” but a doctor cautioned it’s too early to say he’s out of the woods. The American citizen got infected in Liberia, and he was airlifted to Omaha, Nebraska, for treatment Sunday. He’s receiving an experimental drug called brincidofovir, or CMX001.

Dr. Kent Brantly, an Ebola survivor, has donated his blood to Mukpo, which may contain life-saving antibodies, according to the Samaritan’s Purse aid group. Brantly previously did the same for another Ebola patient, Dr. Rick Sacra, who was treated at the same Omaha center as Mukpo and survived.

EUROPEAN CASES

Spain ramps up response:

Four more potential cases of Ebola are under observation in Spain, after a nurse’s assistant there became the first person to contract Ebola outside Africa in the current outbreak. A second nurse’s assistant is under observation at a hospital. Both were on the same team.

Norwegian tests positive:

An unnamed Norwegian national, a staffer with Doctors Without Borders, has contracted the virus while working in Sierra Leone. The staffer was put in isolation Sunday and will be moved to Europe for treatment.

Sporadic Ebola infections will be unavoidable in some European countries because of direct travel from their hubs to hotspot areas in West Africa, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. But the risk of spread, it said, is avoidable and extremely low.

RESPONSE

Closed wallets:

The Ebola outbreak may dominate the headlines, but few Americans are opening up their wallets. Four major U.S. aid organizations surveyed by CNNMoney have received a combined total of $19.5 million so far. Much of that came from nonprofit foundations, not individual donors. Last month, the United Nations said it would need nearly $1 billion to fight the virus.

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