Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Ebola Patient's Condition Worsens; Burchett: Sick Passenger Said He Was From Liberia; Ebola: How to Stop Lethal Virus

Aired October 4, 2014 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'm Poppy Harlow. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

We begin tonight with a huge reality check in the fight against Ebola. A flight arriving at Newark airport gave health officials a major test of how prepared they are to deal with this lethal virus.

In the meantime, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. is getting worse. Thomas Eric Duncan, who traveled here from Liberia, is now in critical condition.

In Newark, a passenger's illness led the CDC to briefly quarantine a flight coming from Brussels. There is no indication the man on that plane, though, has Ebola. We are still waiting for answers from the CDC.

But earlier, I spoke with a man who was sitting right next to him on that flight. He described the confusion after his flight arrived on the ground in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: First off, tell me, when did you first notice this man was not feeling well, and what did he tell authorities?

RICH BURCHETT, SICK PASSENGER'S SEATMATE (via telephone): We had about an hour left in the flight. And he nudged me and said something, and kind of incoherently. I didn't really understand him.

So I asked him to repeat it, and he asked for help -- asked me to call for a flight attendant. So I paged a flight attendant. And at this time, he had his head between his hands and kind of bent over in the seat. And had his face covered with like a towel.

When the flight attendant came, he said that his eyes felt like they were floating, and they were hurting really bad. And he had never felt that before. The flight attendant asked, "What would you like me to do? You know, is there something I can get for you, or would you like me to see if there is medical personnel on board?" And he immediately said, "Yes, yes, do that."

HARLOW: And can you tell me, Rich --

BURCHETT: About an hour and a half left in the flight -- oh, I'm sorry?

HARLOW: Can you tell me, Rich? I know that at some point, I know he did talk to authorities. They took his passport, et cetera. What did he tell the authorities in terms of where he was originally traveling from?

BURCHETT: So, once they came back to question him, another flight attendant came back, two came together. And to describe the symptoms again and the second flight attendant said, "Where are you originating from?" And he said, "Liberia."

HARLOW: He did say he was from Liberia.

Tell me a bit about what happened when you landed, because we know that the -- the CDC did get involved immediately. We saw these photos of officials coming on the plane. What were they wearing, what kind of protective gear were they wearing? And what did they tell and you all the other passengers to do?

BURCHETT: So, originally, while we were waiting for the CDC to come on board, the flight attendants had come back and said that we were in row 27, and the flight attendant said rows 25 through 28 would need to stay on the plane -- on that side of the plane, anyway. And everyone else would be able to deplane.

And then, CDC came on. They were wearing like a protective suit, face shield and mask and rubber gloves, of course. And then they escorted him off the plane, him and his daughter. He had a young daughter with him. And it wasn't very long -- I'm going to give you a guess because I'm not for sure, but it felt like 15 to 20 minutes later, they announced over the P.A., that everyone would be able to deplane including the people in rows 25 through 28, and that he was not contagious.

HARLOW: OK. So they told you, you could all deplane. You could go home. Did the authorities tell you anything? Obviously, there is heightened awareness about the concern about Ebola in this country.

Did they tell you anything about monitoring your symptoms, anything like that? Any indication he may be infected?

BURCHETT: They did not at that time. Several hours later -- after we got in the airport, I actually have is global entry, so I go right through Customs. I was already in baggage maybe 10 minutes after we deplaned. And they came across the loud speaker and told all officers do not allow anyone from United Airlines Flight 998 to obtain their baggage or to leave.

And then we were all -- about 35 of us had made it through Customs. We were corralled in one area. From what I was told, the remaining passengers who are corralled upstairs in Newark Airport, and then we waited for hours and hours.

HARLOW: So, that's interesting. You waited in the airport, not on the plane. Ultimately, when authorities did let you leave with your baggage, did they -- did they say why? BURCHETT: So, we did get an announcement from a representative from

the CDC that we were held as an abundance of caution. And then, previously, we had all been asked to fill out information sheets, to give our full contact information, e-mail addresses, permanent addresses, et cetera, required to us turn those in. And then gave us an information sheet on the signs and symptoms for Ebola.

HARLOW: OK. This -- CNN was told earlier today that this sick passenger, this man, was vomiting on the flight. I know it's not a pleasant thing to talk about, but because of the way this disease is transferred, did you see him vomit or do you believe that that happened in the bathroom where he was alone?

BURCHETT: I did not see that or have any reason to know that he did.

HARLOW: OK.

BURCHETT: Once -- once they found out he was from Liberia, they actually put a mask on him and his daughter, and escorted him -- somewhere behind me. They got him up out of the seat and actually took him somewhere towards the back of the plane but I have no idea where it was actually behind me.

HARLOW: And then what did you do right after that? How were you feeling?

BURCHETT: Very nervous, obviously. They did open up the resting area for the flight attendants. They opened it up and allowed me to move across the aisle way to move away from him in the meantime before they got him moved.

HARLOW: And it's important to remind our viewers. Again, we do not know if Ebola has anything to do with this. We are asking all of our sources, all of the authorities, when we know we will let our viewers know.

And it's also important to note Ebola is not transmitted through the air. It's not transmitted just by touching someone. This is something that is transmitted by bodily fluids.

Are you concerned at all for your safety, or do you feel like at this point in time, you are fine?

BURCHETT: I feel fine. My concern is, if this were something that were highly contagious, we did not seem to have a very good reaction plan. I hope that we fully investigate this, and find out how we respond to things like this as a government, because we seemed very uncoordinated in the airport. Many, many people giving directions and sometimes they were conflicting. It really didn't feel like anyone knew exactly how to handle it or how to proceed.

So, I hope we learn from it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: That was Rich Burchett. He was a passenger on the flight that was briefly quarantined earlier today. And when you hear his words, how can you not be worried whether we're prepared for the Ebola virus or not. You heard him say, it seems uncoordinated.

Up next, we're going to discuss that with our panel of experts. That's what we're dedicating the next half hour here on CNN to.

Is the United States ready to handle the arrival of Ebola in America? One of the biggest questions, how do we stop the spread?

Our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, explains a strategy and also why it is not working effectively enough in West Africa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here's the way it's supposed to work. For every Ebola patient, health care workers are supposed to keep track of every single person who has had close contact with them. If one of these contacts gets sick, he's supposed to be isolated and then all of his contacts are followed until there are no more sick patients. It's called contact-tracing and it's pretty simple.

But in many parts of West Africa, contact tracing is breaking down. These slums are a big reason why. In many parts of West Africa, streets have no names, people have no addresses. There may not be maps. That means some contacts never get found.

Here's why that's such a problem. A missed contact can spread Ebola to other contacts, and they'll be missed too. That's why the CDC says even one missed contact can keep the outbreak going.

By now in West Africa, there are entire chains of transmission that are invisible. The CDC has designed special software to keep track of these cases and contacts, and they're trying to implement it in West Africa, but even that hasn't gone smoothly.

All of this is starting to add up, and it has the World Health Organization really concerned.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.

Let's talk about Ebola in detail. Some facts you should know.

How do you get the virus? Three ways: from direct or close contact to someone who is infected, from the transmission of bodily fluids from contaminated surfaces or materials, or thirdly, from the consumption of raw, infected meat.

Also, I also want to bring this news just into CNN. We're getting this from hospital officials in New Jersey. Obviously, we know that passenger on that plane from Brussels to Newark was taken to the hospital, and hospital officials are saying now that the passenger's symptoms were found to be consistent with another minor treatable condition unrelated to Ebola, and then that passenger's child who he was traveling with was asymptomatic.

Again, this is an important development. Hospital officials have released that man who was vomiting on the plane from Brussels to Newark. He will be released, and he will be self-monitoring.

But this is very important, because as you'll remember at the top of the show, that interview we played for you, the man sitting next to this man that had become very ill said that he told officials that he was coming from Liberia. That was, of course, a cause of the concern, and we're going to talk about this a lot more now with our experts.

But again, the headline here: the hospital in New Jersey who treated him saying he had symptoms that were consistent with another minor treatable condition unrelated to Ebola.

The plane at Newark Airport may be the first quarantine over an Ebola fear in this country, but will it be the last or can we expect more fears about potentially infected passengers?

Let's discuss with our expert panel, Dr. Irwin Redlener, head of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Also with me here in New York, Dr. Celine Gounder, specialist in infectious diseases and public health.

And we also have joining us, Dr. Alexander Garza, associate dean at the St. Louis University College of Public Health and former chief medical officer for the Department of Homeland Security.

Thank you all for being here.

Let me start with you, Dr. Redlener. When you look at the reaction here, I mean, this is -- this is a good headline, the fact they do not believe at this point this patient has Ebola, at least not yet.

But you heard from the man on the plane sitting right next to him saying it was really uncoordinated, the response to this. They let us get off, let us get our bags and then said wait don't leave the airport yet for hours.

What do you make of it?

DR. IRWIN REDLENER, DIRECTOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S NATIONAL CENTER FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: What I make is that we're still somewhat confused about the actual protocols that need to happen. This particular gentleman had the two principle triggers that would lead us to suspect this might be a case of Ebola. So, he had both the country of origin that he traveled through -- actually, quite recently. And second of all, he was symptomatic.

In my view, this is a case that should have been kept in the hospital, gotten the appropriate blood test, and then cleared. And I don't know -- we don't know yet whether or not that blood test was done, if it hadn't been done and he was sent home, I would be concerned about that. HARLOW: Dr. Grounder, can you weigh in on this? We have been

constantly contacting the CDC, waiting for some answers. I'm sure as soon as they have them, they will give them to us. But can you determine in a matter of hours if someone has Ebola or not? And do you believe that it is correct to release this person?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND PUBLIC HEALTH SPECIALIST: Well, it is perplexing, the time line here. The fact that the passengers on the plane were kept for 15 minutes or so, and then cleared to deplane, but then end up being kept at the airport for hours. Presumably, I'm just guessing here, maybe they did an Ebola PCR or rapid test on the patient who was symptomatic.

However, I'm still really confused about why they let that patient go without further testing, why that person wasn't isolated. Even if they had a negative test, to be safe, they really should be isolated for 21 days to make sure they don't develop additional symptoms.

HARLOW: So let me ask you about that, Dr. Garza. Because you often can't get correct test results until someone is fully symptomatic, this person was vomiting on the plane. But do you believe they should be in isolation, given that -- we were told by a fellow passenger that they told authorities they came from Liberia and that they were vomiting?

DR. ALEXANDER GARZA, ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Right. So I think you're confronted with a couple of challenges here. First of all, I would think that if they did do the appropriate Ebola testing, that that would have been part of their announcement. That this patient was tested for Ebola, tested negative, therefore, we're comfortable with letting him go from the hospital. It didn't sound like that was in the press release.

HARLOW: Yes, it's not. It's not.

GARZA: Right. And so, that adds a little bit of confusion to what actually happened at the hospital. I'm assuming -- I'm an emergency physician. I've treated, you know, thousands of patients over my career, that they had to have done a thorough physical, and history- taking. And they had to have some sort of reason to believe that this was not a case of Ebola.

But I agree with the other guest, that he does fit case definition, which is he has symptoms, and he's from the country where the disease is prevalent. And so, you have to be at a heightened state of awareness.

Now, about the other question of isolation, now you start getting into a logistics question. So, if you start putting people into isolation that come over from Liberia and they can have other diseases such malaria, or other viral diseases. But if you're going to start putting people into isolation, then you have to start thinking two or three steps down the road. Where are we going to isolate them, for how long, who is going to be taking care of these people, so on and so on. And don't forget, he was traveling with a small child.

HARLOW: Right.

GARZA: Who is going to be taking care of that child now?

So, there a lot of things you have to think through if you're going to start taking these measures.

Doctors, please stay with us. Thank you for your expertise.

We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to continue discussing this, because Liberia insists that Duncan, the patient being treated in Dallas right now, never told them that he had been exposed to anyone with Ebola, knew anyone who was infected. But he left Liberia with the virus in his bloodstream.

How do you stop really an invisible threat like that? If it can't be detected, should we ban travel now from those affected countries in West Africa? It is a heated debate. Will that even do any good? We'll look at that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right, some facts about Ebola you might have been wondering.

In perfect conditions, the virus can live on surfaces for up to six days. But it can be killed or it can be wiped out by heat or cleaning, which is why medical providers will burn sheets, use bleach to clean areas where patients have been.

Some people think a travel ban could stop Ebola from getting into the United States or spreading. But the head of the CDC says that's not the answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, CDC DIRECTOR: The fact is, people travel, people move and if we restrict travel, it will make harder to control Ebola there and ultimately increase the risk in other parts of the world, including here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Is he right? Is a travel ban pointless or could it keep Ebola at bay in the United States?

Let's bring back in our expert panel, Dr. Irwin Redlener, Dr. Celine Gounder, and Dr. Alexander Garza.

Let me go to you, Dr. Gounder, you made a very important point in the break about why you think a travel ban is not the answer.

GOUNDER: Travel ban will not work. For one thing, many of the people traveling from West Africa or from that matter, from all over Africa to the United States come through other ports of entry, other international airports -- so, for example, Paris, Frankfurt, London. Are we prepared to block all flights into the U.S.? HARLOW: No.

GOUNDER: Exactly. And in addition, by cancelling flights in and out of West Africa, we're actually making it much harder for aide workers already to get into the country to respond to the epidemic.

HARLOW: Dr. Redlener, I'm getting a lot of tweets from people we've been discussing all evening, people that are really scared and really upset. And they say why are we bringing people into this country that even have a chance, a chance of having Ebola? You also can understand their concern and their fear.

REDLENER: Well, I do. And there is a lot of fear associated with Ebola. And some of it is founded and some not that well founded. But I do agree that attempting to block all travel in and out of West Africa is virtually impossible. There are ethical issues about who and why we're blocking and there are legal issues. There are economic issues.

HARLOW: Moral questions.

REDLENER: There's trade issue -- I mean, it's just -- it's just out of the question. We have to figure out other ways to handle this.

And we do have some other strategies. But I think people should -- that's not what people should be worried about. They should be worried about our ability to do appropriate public health strategies, to track and deal with contacts and make sure that our hospital system is up to the point that -- where we're taking care of people.

HARLOW: And what happened in Dallas with the hospital, huge error, does not happen -- does not happen anywhere else.

Dr. Garza, to you -- is there any precedent for this in this country in terms of having this debate over what to do with air travel in terms of restricting it? Because that's the majority of questions we're getting and tweets we're getting, and why are we allowing this to come into the country. I mean, it's just not that simple.

GARZA: Right. So, if you think back, at least in the last decade or so, there has been a couple of cases where this has been debated. One was with the SARS epidemic coming out of the far east where we had cases come into Canada. And the other one more recently was H1N1 where there was active debate on the hill. I was in Homeland Security at the time, whether to start restricting travel from countries that were endemic with H1N1.

But the point being is that disease is ubiquitous around the world. And as my old boss, Secretary Napolitano, used to say, if you build a 50-foot fence, they're going to build a 51-foot ladder.

So, it's not as simple as saying we're going to restrict travel from out of these countries. People are going to make their way into the United States, whether it's by air travel or by other means. And so, it would be an incredibly difficult feat to pull off, and not to mention, would put an incredible crimp on the airlines, which then has an economic impact.

So, it's easy to say that this is something we should be doing, but it's much more difficult in practice to do.

HARLOW: Yes. No question. All right, doctors, thank you. Stay with us. We're going to take a quick break.

On the other side, we're going to talk about this. We've been getting some e-mails from viewers, tweets, et cetera, asking, can you get Ebola if you went swimming in a pool where someone else was swimming? Just how easy is it to contract? We're going at that talk about that, the facts, the fiction, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. We want to end the show this evening with some questions from you, our viewers, that we have been getting on Twitter. Our panel of expert doctors joins me now.

Let me go to you first, Dr. Gounder. This question came in asking about pets or animals. Can they contract Ebola? Can they carry it?

GOUNDER: Well, presumably, primates and bats would be able to carry Ebola. Those are the reservoirs, the sources of Ebola. But can a dog or cat get Ebola? There's no evidence to indicate that.

HARLOW: And to you Dr. Redlener, this question came in -- Ebola isn't airborne, but could I get it through a sneeze or a cough?

REDLENER: Well, you would have to be pretty close to a person, let's say two or three feet from a person who sneezes directly at you. You inhale it or have an open cut or something on your skin. But once we get beyond a few feet, what we have is the remnants of the sneeze or cough. We do not have actually transmission of the --

HARLOW: So it can happen, but rarely.

REDLENER: It would be really rare. And really, the fluids we're most worried about are blood, vomitus, diarrhea, those are the things that have the highest concentration of the Ebola virus.

HARLOW: OK. To you, Dr. Garza, this question came in. Someone said, "If I went swimming with someone infected with Ebola, could I get the virus?"

GARZA: It would be highly unlikely. It would be really -- I think that odds would be astronomical you would even get close enough to an infective dose to acquire the disease. And don't forget that pools are filtered and chlorinated to remove bacteria and other infected material. So, right there, you have a self contained cleaning apparatus to make sure it doesn't transmit.

HARLOW: If it's in a chlorinated pool.

Dr. Gounder, to you, someone wrote in asking, could someone hide the symptoms or the fever by taking an aspirin when they're going to the airport, because that's what they're testing for.

GOUNDER: Right, right. Well, at the airport in Liberia, for example, they're checking it multiple stations, check points, to see if you have a fever. So, it's not a one-time check. So, really, you would have to be taking aspirin or Tylenol or ibuprofen around the clock at the time that you're checking. And then when you go through connecting flights and so, if they're doing fever screening there.

HARLOW: OK. And final thought to you, Dr. Redlener, very quickly, 30 seconds left. The biggest misconception, misperception about Ebola?

REDLENER: The misperception I would like to address right now is the fact that this is not a disease that is going to become an epidemic in the United States. Because you can't get -- you can't get it before people have symptoms. And when they have symptoms, they have done that kind of travel in Western Africa, that's the triggers.

HARLOW: Thank you, Doctor. We're out of time.

Thank you to our three doctors, our expert panel. We appreciate you joining us this evening.

Thank you all for joining me. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.

Coming up next, "CNN SPOTLIGHT: Inside the Trial of Jodi Arias."