Girlfriend of US first Ebola Victim Complains of Poor Quarantine Conditions

The girlfriend of the first U.S.-diagnosed Ebola patient is living in
quarantine hell, stuck in her Dallas apartment with the sweat-stained
sheets the virus victim slept on.

Photos taken Thursday showed police posted outside the Ivy Apartments
in Dallas after the girlfriend and three family members were accused
of violating orders to stay indoors.

Despite the warnings, one image showed a young man wearing a black
T-shirt reading "YOLO" — the acronym for "you only live once" —
stepping outside to retrieve boxes of delivered food.

In another shot, someone's hand can be seen through a window clutching
a thermometer.

The eerie images emerged as authorities said Ebola patient Thomas
Duncan lied on a health questionnaire he filled out before leaving
Liberia on Sept. 19. Liberian officials said they plan to prosecute
him for denying he had contact with someone infected with Ebola.

Officials suspect Duncan, 42, of Liberia's capital Monrovia,
contracted Ebola on Sept. 15 by taking an infected pregnant woman to a
Monrovia hospital. The woman died hours after she was turned away from
three hospitals and a clinic.

Duncan's girlfriend in Texas, the mother of one of his children, broke
her silence Thursday, telling CNN in a phone interview of the
nightmare she and family members are enduring in medical-crisis
seclusion.

The girlfriend, who would only give her name as Louise, said she was
confined to her apartment with one of her children and two nephews in
their 20s. She told CNN's Anderson Cooper they were all in the
apartment when Duncan became ill last week.

In a stunning disclosure, Louise said Duncan's sweat-stained sheets
remained on the bed he slept in and towels he used were also in the
apartment.

News of the questionable hygienic conditions in the home had Texas
health officials worried and scrambling.

"We have some hygiene issues that we are addressing in that
apartment," said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who also serves as
director of the county's Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Jenkins said a plan is in the works to move Louise and her relatives
out of the apartment.

A medical-waste contractor was also summoned to the apartment
Thursday, said officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control
and Protection in Atlanta.

The family has been ordered to remain in quarantine until at least
Oct. 19. Louise said neither she nor her relatives have exhibited any
symptoms of Ebola.

(nydaily news)