DALLAS -- The woman who checked Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan's vitals before calling him an ambulance beamed with pride Monday as she sent her children off to school for the first time in three weeks, with clearance from health officials tucked into their backpacks.
A letter dated Oct. 19 and signed by Dallas County's chief epidemiologist Wendy Chung authorized Youngor Jallah, the daughter of Duncan's fiancee Louise Troh, and her partner, Aaron Yah, to return to work and their children to go back to school "without any restrictions."
"We were sitting here traumatized. We just thank God we never came down with the virus," Jallah told The Associated Press.
The people closest to Duncan, and dozens more, are trying to resume their lives after emerging from a 21-day incubation period without developing symptoms of the deadly disease. With a control order isolating Troh and others who had shared a home with Duncan being lifted, Troh spent part of Monday afternoon looking for a new place to live with funds collected by the city of Dallas, her church and an anonymous donor.
Health officials said Monday that 43 of 48 people on an original watch list have passed the incubation period safely. Others who cared for Duncan remain at risk, including two nurses he infected and their close contacts. That brings to 120 the number of people now being monitored, with their wait period ending Nov. 7, said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. He said the number may fluctuate.
An Ebola patient who's been treated in Atlanta since early September has been released from Emory University Hospital after he was determined to be free of the virus and no threat to the public. Hospital and health officials never released his name, in keeping with his family's wish for privacy.
Health officials said they were relieved as the monitoring period ended for many, and after a cruise ship scare ended with the boat returning to port and a lab worker on board testing negative for the virus.
After Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola, Troh, her 13-year-old son, Duncan's nephew and a family friend were ordered by a Dallas court to stay inside the apartment among Duncan's used linens. Five days later they were evacuated to a four-bedroom home in an isolated corner of a 13-acre (5.3-hectare) gated property owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas, southwest of downtown.
Except for a few plastic bins filled with personal documents, photographs, trophies and a Bible, the apartment was stripped down to the carpeting and the contents were incinerated.
"We want to restore what's lost but more than that, we want to give her a running start on her new life," said Troh's pastor, George Mason of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.
While health workers cleared Jallah of having Ebola, the disease's stigma lingers -- including among fellow Liberians, she said.
"If they see me at the store, they run away," she said.
Duncan, who became the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., died Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said those caring for Duncan were vulnerable because some of their skin was exposed.
- Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle, Nomaan Merchant and Marilynn Marchione in Dallas and Mike Stobbe in Atlanta contributed to this report.
