US county weighs criminal charges against Ebola patient

Austin (Texas), Oct 8 (IANS/EFE) District Attorney Craig Watkins of Dallas County in Texas is mulling filing criminal charges against Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola-infected Liberian, for consciously exposing the public to the virus, media reported.

"We are investigating whether Duncan exposed the public to a deadly virus knowingly which would be criminal intent," Debbie Denmon, a spokesperson of the Dallas County district attorney's office, said in a statement Tuesday to The Washington Post.

"One just can't hop on a plane, lie on a travel form, come to the United States and lie on a medical document," she added.

Duncan came from Liberia and landed in the US Sep 22 to marry the mother of his son and start a new life.

At the beginning of his journey in Monrovia, Liberia, Duncan filled out a form claiming to have had no contact with any person infected with the Ebola virus.

This was contradicted by people close to Duncan and after knowing that he suffered from Ebola they acknowledged that a few days before his journey he helped to take an infected woman to a medical centre where she later died.

Duncan was admitted to Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas with fever and abdominal pains, but the doctors let him go with antibiotics without realising that he had come from Liberia.

Duncan came back to the hospital three days later. He was quarantined and later diagnosed with Ebola.

Duncan is in critical condition and will be subjected to an experimental treatment in the Dallas hospital where he is connected to a ventilator and undergoing renal dialysis.

--IANS/EFE

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