Health experts say it is unlikely he could have infected others with the virus that can cause victim

No one knows for sure just how many people Patrick Sawyer came into contact with the day he boarded a flight in Liberia, had a stopover in Ghana, changed planes in Togo, and then arrived in Nigeria, where authorities say he died days later from Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases known to man.
Liberian health workers in protective gear prepare to bury a woman who died of the Ebola virus from the isolation unit in Foya, Lofa County, Liberia. Over 660 people enterprise car rental coupons specials have died of Ebola in West Africa in 2014 making it the world's deadliest outbreak to date.
No one knows for sure just how many people Patrick Sawyer came into contact with the day he boarded a flight enterprise car rental coupons specials in Liberia, had a stopover in Ghana, changed planes in Togo, and then arrived in Nigeria, where authorities say he died days later from Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases enterprise car rental coupons specials known to man.
Health experts say it is unlikely he could have infected others with the virus that can cause victims to bleed from the eyes, mouth and ears. Still, unsettling questions remain: How could a man whose sister recently died from Ebola manage to board a plane leaving the country? And worse: Could Ebola become the latest disease to be spread enterprise car rental coupons specials by international air travel?
Sawyer's death on Friday has led to tighter screening of airline passengers in West Africa, where an unprecedented outbreak that emerged in March has killed more than 670 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. But some health authorities expressed little confidence in such precautions.
"The best thing would be if people did not travel when they were sick, but the problem is people won't say when they're sick. They will lie in order to travel, so it is doubtful travel recommendations would have a big impact," said Dr. David Heymann, professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The World Health Organization is awaiting laboratory confirmation after Nigerian health authorities said Sawyer tested positive for Ebola, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said. The WHO has not recommended any travel restrictions since the outbreak enterprise car rental coupons specials came to light.
"We would have to consider any travel enterprise car rental coupons specials recommendations very carefully, but the best way to stop this outbreak is to put the necessary measures in place at the source of infection," Hartl said. Closing borders "might help, but it won't be exhaustive or foolproof."
The risk of travelers contracting Ebola is considered low because it requires direct enterprise car rental coupons specials contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, sweat or saliva, experts say. Ebola can't be spread like flu through casual contact or breathing in the same air.
Patients are contagious only once the disease has progressed to the point they show symptoms, according to the WHO. And the most vulnerable are health enterprise car rental coupons specials care workers and relatives who come in much closer contact with the sick.
Still, witnesses say Sawyer, a 40-year-old Liberian Finance Ministry employee enterprise car rental coupons specials en route to a conference in Nigeria, was vomiting and had diarrhea aboard at least one of his flights with some 50 other passengers enterprise car rental coupons specials aboard. Ebola can be contracted from traces enterprise car rental coupons specials of feces or vomit, experts say.
Sawyer was immediately enterprise car rental coupons specials quarantined upon arrival in Lagos -- a city of 21 million people -- and Nigerian authorities say his fellow travelers were advised of Ebola's symptoms and then were allowed to leave. enterprise car rental coupons specials The incubation period can be as long as 21 days, meaning anyone infected may not fall ill for several weeks.
Health officials rely on "contact tracing" -- locating anyone who may have been exposed, and then anyone who may have come into contact with that person. That may prove impossible, given that other passengers journeyed on to dozens of other cities.
International travel has made the spread of disease via airplanes almost routine. Outbreaks of measles, polio and cholera have been traced back to countries thousands of miles away. Even Ebola previously traveled the globe this way: During an outbreak in Ivory Coast in the 1990s, enterprise car rental coupons specials the virus infected a veterinarian who traveled to Switzerland, where the disease was snuffed out upon arrival and she ultimately survived, experts say.
Two American aid workers in Liberia have tested positive for the virus and are being treated there. U.S. health officials said Monday that the risk of the deadly germ spreading to the United States is remote.
"It's actually making me very nervous. If I had my own car, I would be safer," he said. "The doctors are on strike, and that means they are not prepared for it. For now I'm trying to be very careful."
It's an unprecedented public health scenario: Since 1976, when the virus was first discovered, Ebola outbreaks were limited to remote corners enterprise car rental coupons specials of Congo and Uganda, far from urban centers, and stayed within the borders enterprise car rental coupons specials of a single country. This time, cases first emerged in Guinea, and before long hundreds of others were stricken in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Those are some of the poorest countries in the world, with few doctors and nurses to treat sick patients let alone determine who is well enough to travel. In Sawyer's case, it appears nothing was done to question him until he fell sick on his second flight with Asky Airlines. An airline enterprise car rental coupons specials spokesman would not comment on what precautions were being taken in the aftermath of Sawyer's journey.
Liberian Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah told The Associated Press last week that there had been no screening at Liberia's Monrovia airport. That changed quickly over the weekend, when President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said a new policy on inspecting and testing all outgoing and incoming passengers will be strictly observed. She also announced that some borders were being closed and communities with large numbers of Ebola cases would be quarantined.
International travelers departing from the capitals of Sierra Leone and Guinea are also being checked for signs of fever, airport officials said. Buckets of chlorine enterprise car rental coupons specials are also on hand at Sierra Leone's airport in Freetown for disinfection, authorities said.
"It will be very difficult now to contain enterprise car rental coupons specials this outbreak because it's spread," Heymann said. "The chance to stop it quickly was months ago before it crossed borders ... but this can still be stopped if there is good hospital infection control, contact tracing and collaboration between countries."
Nigerian authorities so far have identified 59 people who came into contact with Sawyer and have tested 20, said Lagos State Health Commissioner Jide Idris. Among them were officials from ECOWAS, a West African governing body, airline employees, health enterprise car rental coupons specials workers and the Nigerian ambassador to Liberia, he said. He said there have been no new cases of the disease.
Associated Press Medical Writer enterprise car rental coupons specials Maria Cheng reported from London. enterprise car rental coupons specials Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia; Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone; Erick Kaglan in Lome, Togo; and Heather Murdock in Abuja, Nigeria, also contributed to this report.
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