A Maine resident who returned to the state from the area of West Africa where the Ebola outbreak occurred is being monitored by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, although the person did not report coming in contact with anyone with Ebola and has no symptoms of the disease, the agency said Saturday.

The Maine CDC said the person’s temperature will be checked daily, and he or she will be monitored for the presence of Ebola symptoms, including headaches, joint and muscle aches, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, lack of appetite and abnormal bleeding. It did not say how or where that monitoring will take place or indicate that the person will be quarantined.

Although the Maine CDC said the person will be asked about travel plans, it did not say where the person is or whether the state can restrict or alter those travel plans.

The Maine CDC also did not provide any details about how the person was brought to its attention. A news release from the agency Saturday said it “continues to be in close contact with our federal partners and is actively monitoring travelers” from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea who have Maine as their final destination.

Federal officials this past week said flights from those three countries will be routed to five major airports in the U.S., and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will alert local public health authorities to monitor travelers from that region for up to 21 days.

Messages left for Dr. Sheila Pinette, director of the Maine CDC, were not returned Saturday. Repeated emails to John A. Martins, spokesman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, seeking more information on the Maine traveler were not returned.

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The news release from the Maine CDC said that on Thursday, the state began “daily post-arrival monitoring” of travelers to Maine who had been to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. It did not say when the person they are monitoring arrived in Maine, but did say the person’s travel began in Maine and he or she was monitored after returning from West Africa.

State officials said they would monitor the person for 21 days after the last possible exposure to Ebola, but did not provide any dates. People who contract Ebola usually display symptoms from two to 21 days after they get the virus. People are contagious only while they display symptoms and the virus spreads only through direct contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids.

Two weeks ago, a man showed up at Maine Medical Center in Portland for an unrelated reason, but complained about a fever and said he had been to what state officials called “a region of concern.” He was held for observation and tested “multiple” times for Ebola. He was released two days later after the test results came back negative.

A teacher at Strong Elementary school was put on a 21-day paid leave of absence this month after she returned from an educational conference in Dallas, where the nation’s first of Ebola was diagnosed in a visitor from Liberia.

Maine Medical Center announced last week that it was upgrading its Ebola procedures following the news that two nurses who had treated the patient in Dallas had become infected,

Maine Med is also building four isolation rooms in its emergency department, in addition to the two isolation rooms the hospital already had.

The hospital also said it had upgraded its protection suits for health care workers and instituted stricter procedures in an attempt to eliminate the risk of a spread of the disease if a patient with Ebola is admitted.

The World Health Organization said Saturday that there have been 10,141 total cases of the virus in the current outbreak, with 5,692 of those confirmed by a laboratory. The virus has killed 4,922 people.

There have been four cases in the U.S., all of them laboratory-confirmed, and one death.


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